Creating a VM Group for Google Cloud

To specify a set of instances to back up or restore, create a VM group.

You can add content to the VM group by using rules that auto-discover content, by selecting specific instances, and by other ways. When you first create the VM group, you can add an instance that is relatively small, and then later you can update the VM group by adding more content.

Procedure

1. From the Command Center navigation pane, go to Protect > Virtual machines.

   The Overview page appears.

2. In the upper-right area of the page, click Add VM group.

   The Select Hypervisor page of the Add VM Group configuration wizard appears.

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

4. Click Next.

   The Plan page of the Add VM Group configuration wizard appears.

5. From the Plan list, select the backup plan for the VM group.

6. Click Next.

   The Add VM Group page of the Add VM Group configuration wizard appears.

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

8. To create rules that auto-discover and select instances 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:

      When entering values, you can use "*" to represent any characters.

      • 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.

      • Label: Select instances based on the labels they contain. For example, to select instances that have a "department:finance" label, enter Key | Equals | department and Value | Equals | finance.

      • Project: Select instances based on the project that they belong to. For example, to select instances in the MyCompany project, enter Project | Equals | MyCompany.

      • 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.

9. To select instances 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 project: Select instances based on the project they are associated with.

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

      • By zone: Select instances based on the zone that they reside in.

   3. Click Save.

10. The IntelliSnap is enabled by default to back up the VM group. With IntelliSnap enabled, the associated backup plan is automatically updated to select the Snap enabled option.

11. To see the instances that are selected for the VM group, click the Preview button.

    Important

    Carefully review the VM group to verify that it does not include instances that don't actually need to be backed up.

12. Click Next.

    The Plan page of the Add VM Group configuration wizard appears.

13. Select an existing backup plan or create a new backup plan.

    A backup plan specifies the storage to back up the data to and other settings such as recovery point objective (RPO) settings. If the backup plan doesn't have a snapshot copy configured, the Commvault Cloud software adds a snapshot copy to the backup plan, with retention of 8 recovery points. You can modify the retention.

14. To create a backup plan, do the following:

    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. From the Storage region list, select the storage region.

    4. If you want to configure storage manually, disable the Bundle storage toggle key, and then add any of the following storages:

       • Air Gap Protect

       • Cloud

15. 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 Snapshot retention, specify the number of snapshots to retain.

      • 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.

16. Click Submit.

Summary

1. Review the summary.

2. Click Finish.