Configuring a VMware policy from the Policies utility
Note:
VMware policies can also be configured from the NetBackup web UI. To do so, on the left navigation pane, click , and then select a listed VMware policy to change it. Or click , enter a Policy name, and select from the drop-down list.
You can create a NetBackup policy (full or incremental) to back up the virtual machine in either of two ways:
Note:
To configure a policy for Replication Director, see the NetBackup Replication Director Solutions Guide.
To configure a policy to back up the virtual machine
- In the NetBackup Administration Console, click Policies and select Actions > New > Policy.
- Enter a name for the policy.
- For Policy type, select VMware.
VMware backup options are available on the VMware tab (described later in this procedure).
- Select a policy storage unit or storage unit group.
Storage unit groups are described in the NetBackup Administrator's Guide, Volume I.
- In most cases, you can leave the Disable client-side deduplication option at the default (unchecked).
The Disable client-side deduplication option is described in the NetBackup Administrator's Guide, Volume I.
- To enable the Accelerator, click Use Accelerator.
When you click Use Accelerator, the Enable block-level incremental backup option on the VMware tab is selected and grayed out.
- Click the VMware tab.
Use this dialog to set VMware-related options.
- Click the Exclude Disks tab.
Use this tab to exclude disks from the backups.
See Exclude Disks tab.
- To define a schedule, click the Schedules tab and click New.
For assistance with the Accelerator forced rescan option:
See Accelerator forced rescan for virtual machines (schedule attribute).
On the Schedules Attributes tab, you can select Full backup, Differential Incremental Backup, or Cumulative Incremental Backup.
Note that incremental backups require one of the following selections on the policy VMware tab:
Enable file recovery from VM backup, or
Enable block-level incremental backup.
Enable block-level incremental backup requires an ESX server 4.0 and a virtual machine at vmx-07 or later.
The following topic contains additional information.
- Click the Clients tab to select the virtual machines to back up.
The options for selecting virtual machines are as follows:
Select manually, and click New.
The Browse for VMware Virtual Machines screen appears. You can type the host name in the Enter the VMware hostname field, or click Browse and select virtual machine.
Note:
The Backup Selections tab is set to ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES. Individual drives cannot be specified.
Select automatically through VMware Intelligent Policy query
With this option, NetBackup can automatically select virtual machines for backup based on the filtering criteria that you enter. The following topics explain how to specify the criteria:
See About automatic virtual machine selection for NetBackup for VMware.
See Configuring automatic virtual machine selection.
Note:
The Backup Selections tab is filled in with the filtering rules from the query. NetBackup uses the ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES directive to back up the virtual machines.
Enable vCloud Director integration
Enables backup of the virtual machines that reside in a vCloud environment. Requires the automatic selection of virtual machines.
With this option, the policy selects for backup only the virtual machines that vCloud manages: it skips the virtual machines that are not in vCloud.
NetBackup host to perform automatic virtual machine selection
This option appears when you click Select automatically through VMware Intelligent Policy query.
This host discovers virtual machines and automatically selects them for backup based on the query rules.
See About automatic virtual machine selection for NetBackup for VMware.
- When you click OK, a validation process checks the policy and reports any errors. If you click Cancel, no validation is performed.
