Virtual machine host names and display names should be unique if VMs are selected manually in the policy
Certain VMware environments do not require unique names for virtual machines. For instance, virtual machines within a vCenter server can have the same host or display names as virtual machines in another vCenter server. The same is true of datacenters, which are logical groupings of virtual resources within a vCenter server. Virtual machine host names or display names must be unique within a datacenter. They do not need to be unique between two datacenters on the same vCenter. A virtual machine named VM1 can exist in datacenter A. Another virtual machine (also named VM1) can exist in datacenter B, on the same vCenter server.
Identically named virtual machines can present a problem for any policies that are configured as follows:
The primary server's policies use the option on the Clients tab to select the VMs for backup.
The option on the VMware tab identifies VMs by their host names or display names.
These policies may back up a different but identically named VM, instead of the VM that you selected. In that case, the VM that you selected is not backed up. For these policies to work, the virtual machines' display names or host names must be unique.
Consider the following options:
For manual policies that identify VMs by display name or host name, change the VM names so that each VM has a unique host name or display name.
As an alternative, configure the policies' option to identify the VMs by their UUIDs instead of by host name or display name. Use the type of UUID that is appropriate for your virtual machine environment.
Instead of policies with manual-selection, use VMware Intelligent policies to select the VMs through a query. Even if the option is set to host name or display name, NetBackup identifies each VM by its UUID.