Managing VM Group Content for Azure Stack Hub

For an existing VM group, you can add virtual machines or modify the content selections.

Considerations

If a virtual machine is explicitly added to the content of a subclient, the virtual machine will be discovered by its GUID. If the display name changes later, the machine is still included in the subclient as long as its GUID remains the same. Any virtual machines identified in a subclient and discovered by their GUIDs will not be filtered from backups.

Before You Begin

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

3. Click an existing VM group.

4. Under Content, click Manage.

   The Content tab of the VM group content page shows the currently selected content to be backed up.

5. To remove a virtual machine, click in the Actions column of the row for the VM and select Remove.

6. To add VM group content, click Add virtual machines.

   The Add virtual machines page appears.

7. Select a browse method for 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 a view from the list to control the browse display.

8. Click OK after selecting VMs or other objects.

9. 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.

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

11. Click Preview to see a list of the virtual machines that will be backed up.

12. 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 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").