Creating Disk Filters for VMware

From the VM group content dialog box, you can create disk filters to exclude virtual machine disks from backups.

The Browse option to select VMs is available only for VM groups with IntelliSnap disabled.

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. The VM groups area displays summary information for any existing VM groups.

3. Click an existing VM group.

4. Under Content, click Manage.

   The VM group content dialog box appears.

   The Disk Filters tab shows disks to be excluded from backups.

5. On the Disk Filters tab, to remove a filter, click in the Actions column of the row for the filter and select Remove.

6. To exclude virtual machine disks, click Add disk filter.

   1. In the Add disk filter dialog box, from the Disk filter type list, choose one of the following:

      • Datastore: Select a datastore to filter all disks on the datastore.

      • Hard disk label: Select this option to filter disks based on number labels. Specify the range by typing values in the Hard Disk Number From and Hard Disk Number To boxes.

      • Virtual device node: Select this option to filter a specific device node.

        Select the node from the Virtual Device Node list.

      • VMDK name/pattern: Type a pattern for the names of disks to filter.

        For example, you can filter disks with patterns such as VMName.vmdk, *VMName.vmdk, /**/folder/VM*.vmdk, or [Datastore]*/VM*.vmdk).

   2. Click OK.

7. To edit a rule, click in the Actions column of the row for the filter and select Edit rule.

8. Click OK to save the changes to VM group content.