Adding a VM Group for Alibaba Cloud

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

Before You Begin

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

• The image that was used to create an instance must be present when you perform a backup operation. If the image is not available when the backup is performed, a browse operation of guest files and folders from that backup fails.

Add the Hypervisor

1. From the Hypervisor list, select the hypervisor to create a VM group for.

2. Click Next.

   The Add VM Group page appears.

Add VM Group

1. In Name, enter a descriptive name for the VM group.

2. To create rules that auto-discover and select VMs to back up, do the following:

   1. Click Add, and then select Rules.

      The Add rule dialog box appears.

   2. From the list, select the type of rule to create, and then specify the rule:

      • Browse: Select specific instances. (Selecting this option changes the Add rule dialog box to the Add content dialog box.)

      • Instance name or pattern: Select instances based on their names. For example, to select instances that have a name that includes "east", enter Instance name or pattern | Contains | east.

      • Region: Select instances based on the region that they reside in.

      • Zone: Select instances based on the zone that they reside in. For example, to select instances that reside in any eastern US zone, enter Zone | Contains | us-east. You can enter the zone value by typing or browsing to select.

   3. Click Save.

3. To select VMs in other ways, do the following:

   1. Click Add, and then select Content.

      The Add content dialog box appears.

   2. From the Browse and select VMs list, select one of the following:

      • By Region: Select the VMs based on the region or zone that they reside in.

   3. Select the VMs to add to the VM group.

   4. Click Save.

4. To see the VMs that are selected for the VM group, click the Preview button.

5. Click Submit.

   The Plan page appears.

Add a Plan

1. For Plan, select an existing backup plan or create a new backup plan.

   Steps to create a backup plan

   1. Click the add button .

      The Create backup plan dialog box appears.

   2. In the Plan name box, enter a descriptive name for the backup plan.

   3. For Storage, select the storage pool where you want to store backups.

   4. For the backup plan settings, select pre-defined settings or create custom settings:

      • To select pre-defined settings, under Retention rules, select one of the following:

        • Select Standard retention to retain the incremental backups for 1 month.

        • Select Extended retention for optimized storage where the incremental backups of primary and secondary copies are retained for 1 month, and extended retention for monthly and yearly full backups.

          Note

          The Extended retention option is available only when the secondary copy backup is selected.

      • To create custom settings, select Custom plan, and then specify the following:

        • For Retention, specify the amount of time to retain the backup jobs.

        • For Retention monthly full (Secondary copy), specify the amount of time to retain the monthly full backup on secondary copy.

        • For Retention yearly full (Secondary copy), specify the amount of time to retain the yearly full backup on secondary copy.

        • For Backups run every, specify how often to run backups.

   5. Click Done.

2. To see the VMs that are selected for the VM group, click the Preview button.

3. Click Submit.

   The Summary page of the appears.

Summary

1. Review the summary.

2. Click Finish.