About selecting virtual machines by means of multiple policies
If your virtual environment has many virtual machines with inconsistent naming conventions, you may need multiple policies working in tandem. It may be difficult to create a single policy that automatically selects all the virtual machines that you want to back up.
For this situation, configure several policies such that each policy backs up a portion of the environment. One policy backs up a particular set or group of virtual machines, such as those that have host names. A second policy backs up a different group of virtual machines that were not backed up by the first policy, and so forth. When all the policies have run, all the virtual machines are backed up.
The following table describes the policies that are designed to back up the virtual environment in three phases. Note that each policy relies on a different setting for the Primary VM identifier parameter.
Table: Three policies that back up virtual machines in phases
Policy | Query Builder rules | OData Query Builder rules * | Backup result |
|---|---|---|---|
First policy Primary VM identifier parameter: VM hostname | VMHostName IsSet | hostName ne null | This policy backs up all virtual machines that have a host name. Any virtual machines that do not have a host name are excluded from the backup. |
Second policy Primary VM identifier parameter: VM display name | NOT VMHostName IsSet AND VMHasVDSName Equal 'TRUE' | not (hostName ne null) and vmHasVdsName eq 'TRUE' | This policy backs up all virtual machines that do not have a host name but that do have a valid display name. Any virtual machines that do not have a host name or a valid display name are excluded from the backup. See NetBackup character restrictions for the Primary VM identifier. |
Third policy Primary VM identifier parameter: VM UUID | NOT VMHostName IsSet AND NOT VMHasVDSName Equal 'TRUE' | not (hostName ne null) and not(vmHasVdsName eq 'TRUE') | This policy backs up the virtual machines that were not backed up by the first two policies. This policy selects the virtual machines that do not have a host name or a valid display name, but that do have a UUID. |
* Use OData operators only when you build queries with the NetBackup web UI. | |||
More information is available on the Primary VM identifier parameter and its effect on virtual machine selection.
See Effect of Primary VM identifier parameter on Selection column in Test Query results.