Adding a VM Group for Azure Stack Hub

Add a VM group to identify a specific set of virtual machines to back up or restore.

Before You Begin

• Define a server plan that specifies the storage, retention, and backup schedule to be used for the VM group.

• To select VMs based on views or automatic discovery rules, see "Views and Rule Options" (below).

Procedure

1. From the navigation pane, go to Protect > Virtualization.

   The Virtual machines page appears.

2. On the Hypervisors tab, click the hypervisor.

   The hypervisor page appears.

3. Click Add VM group.

   The Add VM group dialog box appears.

4. Provide the following information:

   • Hypervisor: Select the hypervisor.

   • Name: Type a descriptive name for the VM group.

   • Browse and select VMs: Expand the tree below this field to select the content for the VM group. Click Select all to quickly select all objects or Clear all to remove all current selections.

     You can select a view from the grouping list to control the browse display.

   • You can also define rules to discover virtual machines automatically.

     1. Click Add rule.

     2. From the Select rule for list, choose a rule type.

     3. From the Which matches with list, select Equals, Contains, Starts with, or Ends with.

     4. In the Name box, provide a value as required for the type of rule.

     5. Click OK.

   • Under Backup configuration, choose one of the following options:

     • Enable the Use backup plan option to associate a plan with the hypervisor.

       From the Plan list, select a plan that specifies the storage, retention, and backup schedule to be used for the VM group.

       Note

       For Azure Stack Hub VM groups, you can enable IntelliSnap backups by creating a plan and adding the plan to a VM group. For more information, see Getting Started with IntelliSnap.

     • Disable the Use backup plan option to specify a storage policy and schedule policy that were defined using CommCell Console.

       From the Storage policy list, you can select a storage policy that was previously defined in CommCell Console or a plan that was defined in Command Center.

       Optional: You can select a schedule policy that was previously defined using CommCell Console.

   • IntelliSnap: For Azure Stack Hub, select this option to enable IntelliSnap backups.

     When you enable IntelliSnap for a VM group, the associated server plan is automatically updated to have the Snap enabled option selected.

5. Click Save to save the VM group.

VM groups are created with default settings for backup options. To change default settings, see Editing Subclient Options for Azure Stack.

Views and Rule Options

When you define content or filters for a VM group, you can change the view and select specific entities, or define rules to automatically select VMs that meet specific criteria.

Views

When you browse to select VMs for VM group content or filters, you can select a browse method from the Browse and select VMs list, and then expand the tree below the list to select the content for the VM group, or to clear previous selections.

You can select one of the following options from the list to control the browse display:

• Regions: Select an Azure region to include all VMs in that region.

• Resource group: Select a resource group for Azure Resource Manager.

• Storage Accounts: Select a storage account to include all VMs that reside in the storage account.

• Tags: Select a tag to include all VMs associated with the selection.

• VMs: Select this option to browse and select specific VMs.

Rules

You can define rules to discover virtual machines automatically.

When you add a rule, you can choose one of the following rules and then, from the Which matches with list, select Equals, Contains, Starts with, or Ends with:

• Power state: From the Name list, select the power on status of virtual machines to be included in the VM group content. You can select On to identify VMs that are powered on, Off to identify VMs that are powered off, or Other to identify VMs with a different power on status, such as Suspended.

• Region: Select a region to include all VMs in that region.

• Resource group: In the Name box, type a resource group name or a pattern to identify a resource group.

• Storage Account: Select a storage account to include all VMs that reside in the storage account.

• Tags: In the Name box, type the name of a tag or a pattern using the * wildcard to represent a string of characters (for example, name123 or name*). In the Value box, type a value for the tag or a pattern using the * wildcard to represent a string of characters (for example, value123 or value*).

  • To discover specific VMs, create a rule using a combination of tag names and values.

  • To discover all VMs that have a specific tag regardless of value, create a rule using only the tag name.

• Virtual machine name/pattern: In the Name box, type the display name of the virtual machine or a pattern using wildcards (for example, Test* to identify VMs for which the VM name begins with "Test").