Configuring Backups for Red Hat VMs

You can use the configuration wizard to configure backups for Red Hat Virtualization VMs. The configuration wizard guides you through the configuration process, which includes creating any new entities that are needed, such as a plan, a hypervisor, and a VM group.

Verify That Your Environment Meets the Requirements

You must have at least 1 access node that meets the system requirements.
Verify that your Red Hat account meets the requirements and has the required user permissions.

Start the Configuration Wizard

From the Command Center navigation pane, go to Protect > Virtualization.

The Virtual machines page appears.
In the upper-right area of the page, click Add hypervisor.

The Configure Hypervisor page appears.
Click Red Hat Virtualization.
Click Next.

The Add Hypervisor page of the configuration wizard appears.

Add Hypervisor

For RHEV Manager, enter the name of the RHV Manager host.
For Hypervisor display name, enter a descriptive name for the hypervisor.
In User name, enter the user name for an account with administrator privileges on the RHV Manager.
In Password, enter the password for the user account.
For Access node, select the access nodes to use for the hypervisor.
Click Next.

The Add VM Group page of the configuration wizard appears.

Add VM Group

A VM group is a set of VMs that you want to back up with the same settings. By default, the VM group includes all unprotected VMs. You can modify the VM group content by using rules that auto-discover content and by selecting VMs, hosts, clusters, and datacenters.

In Name, enter a descriptive name for the VM group.
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 VMs. (Selecting this option changes the Add rule dialog box to the Add content dialog box.)
  - Guest DNS hostname: Select VMs based on a hostname or a domain. For example, to select hosts on the "mycompany.com" domain, enter Guest DNS hostname | Ends with | mycompany.com.
  - Guest OS: Select VMs based on operating system. For example, to select VMs that are not Windows, enter Guest OS | Does not contain | Windows.
  - Host: Select VMs based on hostname. For example, to select VMs that are on hosts that include "acme" in their names, enter Host | Contains | acme.
  - Power state: Select VMs based on a power status of On, Off, or Other. (Other includes statuses such as Suspended).
  - Tag: Select VMs based on tags that the VMs are marked with.
  - Virtual machine name or pattern: Select VMs based on their names. For example, to select VMs that have a name that includes "east", enter Virtual machine name or pattern | Contains | east.
3. Click Save.
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:
  - System: Displays the data centers.
  - Clusters: Displays specific clusters.
  - Hosts: Displays the RHV Manager hosts.
  - Storage: Displays storage that contains virtual machine data. Select the storage entry to protect all VMs on the storage, or expand the tree to select specific VMs.
  - VMs: Displays specific VMs.
  - Tags: Displays tags. Select a tag to include all VMs that have that tag.
3. Select the VMs to add to the VM group.
4. Click Save.
To see the VMs that are selected for the VM group, click the Preview button.
For Plan, select an existing plan or create a new plan.
Steps to create a plan
1. Click the add button .
  
  The Add plan dialog box appears.
2. In the Plan name box, enter a descriptive name for the plan.
3. For Storage, select the storage pool where you want to store backups.
4. For the 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 backups.
    - For Backups run every, specify how often to run backups.
5. Click Done.
Click Next.

The Summary page of the configuration wizard appears.

Summary

Review the summary.
Click Finish.