Creating VM Filters for VMware

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

Before You Begin

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

Procedure

From the navigation pane, go to Protect > Virtualization.

The Virtual machines page appears.
On the Hypervisors tab, click the hypervisor.

The hypervisor page appears. The VM groups area displays summary information for any existing VM groups.
Click an existing VM group.
Under Content, click Manage.

The VM group content dialog box appears.

The Filters tab shows content to be excluded from backups.
On the Filters tab, to remove a filter, click in the Actions column of the row for the filter and select Remove.
To add filters by browsing, click Add virtual machines.

The Add virtual machines page appears.
Browse and select VMs: Expand the tree 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.
Click OK after selecting VMs or other objects.
To discover virtual machines automatically, you can also define rules:
1. Click Add filter rule and then provide information for the rule.
2. From the Select rule for list, choose a rule type.
3. From the Which matches with list, choose 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.
To edit a rule, click in the Actions column of the row for the VM and select Edit rule.
Click OK to save the changes to VM group content.

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 hosts, specific VMs, or VM storage locations 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 for VMware:

Hosts and clusters: Select this option to view hosts and the VMs running on each host. Select a host entry to protect all VMs on the host, or expand the tree to select specific VMs.

The top level of the browse shows all accessible vCenters at the top level, ESX servers under vCenters, and virtual machines under each ESX server.
VMs and templates: Select this option to browse and select specific VMs.
Datastores and datastore clusters: Select this option to view datastores containing virtual machine data. The top level of the browse shows all accessible hosts at the top level, with datastores under hosts and virtual machines under each datastore. Select a datastore entry to protect all VMs on the storage, or expand the tree to select specific VMs.
Tags and categories: Select this option to view categories, tags, and virtual machines that are marked with a tag.

When you select a tag, the selection includes all VMs that are marked with the tag. When you select a category, the selection includes all VMs that are marked with a tag that belongs to the selected category.

Rules

You can define rules to discover VMware virtual machines automatically.

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

Custom attribute: Enter a pattern to identify virtual machines based on custom attributes in vCenter annotations for the VM summary. You can enter search values for the names and values of custom attributes. For example:

Entering Name Contains *resize* identifes VMs where the name of a custom attribute contains the word "resize").

Entering Value Contains *128* identifies VMs where the value of a custom attribute contains the number "128").
Datastore: In the Name box, type a datastore name or pattern.
Guest DNS hostname: In the Name box, type a hostname or a pattern to identify a hostname or domain (for example, myhost.mycompany.com to identify a specific host or *mycompany.com to identify all hosts on that domain).
Guest OS: In the Name box, type the exact name of the operating system or a pattern to identify an operating system group (for example, Microsoft* to identify any virtual machine that has a version of the Windows operating system).
Host: In the Name box, type the host name, the IP address of the host, or a host name pattern using wildcards. When you add a host, all virtual machines on the host are included in the backup.
Notes: In the Name box, type a pattern to identify virtual machines based on notes text contained in annotations for the VM summary (for example, Test* to identify VMs with a note that begins with "Test").
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.
Tag: Enter a tag to identify all virtual machines under VMware entities that are marked with that tag.
Tag category: Enter a tag category to identify all virtual machines under VMware entities that are marked with that category.
Template: From the Name list, select True to include templates or False to not include templates.
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").