Options for selecting VMware virtual machines
This topic describes the options on the policy Clients tab.
You can use these options to manually select virtual machines, or to configure NetBackup to select virtual machines automatically. For automatic selection, you specify the selection criteria (rules) in the policy's Query Builder. When the backup job runs, NetBackup discovers the virtual machines that currently meet the criteria and backs up those virtual machines.
See Configure automatic virtual machine selection.
Table: Virtual machine selection
Option | Description |
|---|---|
Select manually | Click this option and click to manually enter virtual machines names, or to browse and select them from a list. See Browse for VMware virtual machines. Note: The rest of the fields and options are for automatic selection of virtual machines. |
Select automatically through VMware intelligent policy query | Click this option to allow NetBackup to automatically select virtual machines for backup based on the rules that you enter in the Query Builder. |
Enable VMware Cloud Director integration | Enables the backup of the virtual machines that reside in a vCloud environment. This option 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. |
This host discovers virtual machines and automatically selects them for backup based on your query rules. The resulting list determines which virtual machines are backed up. To designate your media servers as discovery hosts, select from the pull-down. |
Table: Query Builder
Option | Description |
|---|---|
Basic mode | Places the Query Builder in Basic mode. |
Advanced mode | Places the Query Builder in Advanced mode for manual entry of rules. See Using the Query builder in Advanced mode. |
Query Builder (Join, Field, Operator, Value) | Click . Use the lists to select the values and define the rules for automatic selection of virtual machines. Click to add the list of queries. |
Actions > Edit | Use this option to change an existing query rule when in Basic mode, as follows:
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Actions > Remove | Removes a query rule when in Basic mode. |
Test query | Click this option to test which virtual machines NetBackup selects based on the rules in the Query Builder. Note: This test option does not create the backup list for the policy. When the next backup runs from this policy, NetBackup rediscovers virtual machines and consults the query rules. At that time, NetBackup backs up the virtual machines that match the rules. |
Reuse VM selection query results for | Sets the refresh rate of an internal cache of the query results. NetBackup uses the cache to determine which virtual machines to select at the time of the backup. The cache speeds up the selection of virtual machines without burdening the vCenter server at each scheduled backup. A faster cache refresh rate synchronizes the cache with the changes recorded in vCenter, such as the addition or removal of virtual machines. However, each cache refresh consumes vCenter resources. With a slower refresh rate, new virtual machines may not be included immediately in the next backup. New or changed virtual machines are included when the cache is refreshed. Note that fewer vCenter resources are consumed with a slower refresh rate. The default is 8 hours. For 8 hours, NetBackup uses the cache and does not attempt to rediscover virtual machines. Changes to the virtual environment do not affect the cache during that period. After 8 hours, when the policy runs next NetBackup rediscovers the virtual machines. If any changes match a rule in the query, the list of selected virtual machines is modified accordingly. Note: The cache is refreshed before the next scheduled backup whenever the policy is changed and saved. More information is available on the Reuse VM selection query results for: option: |