Grouping Expression based upon Tags

[jimmymc]

Hi All

Quick, and potentially daft question - fairly new to Business View.

We have our VMs in a folder structure like:

CustomerA\Department1\
CustomerA\Department2\
CustomerA\Department3\

There are VMs at each level - even at the CustomerA level.

I wanted to create a BV group that contains all the VMs from all the folders under CustomerA, but I don't think I can do that easily.. certainly not using folders in the grouping expression (as I understand it).

After reading a few posts, I think tags might be the way forward (although I don't like this idea, as it's easier for a tech to forget to add a tag to a VM than it is to put it in the correct folder).

In vCenter; I've created category 'CustomerA VMs', and the tag 'CustomerA' which I've added to all the VMs in the above folders.

Could someone point me in the right direction as to use? I'm not quite sure on the syntax for this. When I double-click 'Tag', while creating the expression for example, it inserts 'Tag("vSphere Tag category")' - are we talking tag category or tag name here?

Thanks, James

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Jimmy,

Yes, you can use tags, however did you try to use static rules for categorization? In other words, if you use static rule and point it to Department 1, this rule will create a corresponding BV group for this folder.

Thanks!

[hyaman]

Hi James,

The syntax is as the following: 'Tag("vSphere Tag category")' = VMware Tag categories. the full syntax as an exmple from my lab:
CASE
WHEN Tag("SLA_Cat") = "Gold_SLA" THEN "Gold_SLA"
WHEN Tag("SLA_Cat") = "Silver_SLA" THEN "Silver_SLA"
WHEN Tag("SLA_Cat") = "Bronze_SLA" THEN "Bronze_SLA"
ELSE "Other"
END

hope this help.
HY.