How to Exclude certain VM`s from monitoring

[vandieberg]

hey guys,

i am trying to exclude some vm`s to get back into licensing compliance. i have the default rule for include and have created a rule for excludes. when i add a vm to the excludes in the server settings it shows as one less vm under selected vms as expected. however when i go menu license the number of instances does not decrease. any ideas? i dont really want to delete the default rule for includes as i dont want to name each vm individually to include.

also the number of instances that are shown under the license view is 566 and the number in the "monitored vm" selected vm`s 797

cheers

[jorgedlcruz]

Hello,
The best option to be compliant, dynamically is to exclude the business view called vms with no backup.
veeam-one-f20/dyamically-include-exclud ... ml#p487494

Therefore, you will always use the licenses for the VMs you care the most.

Hope it helps. If not, you can use the Business View idea anyways to suit your needs, meaning creating a group based on your criteria and add it either to include, or exclude, depending.

Good luck

[RomanK]

Hello Peter,

The number of instances does not decrease. any ideas?

Veeam ONE per instance license applies to the VMs included in the monitoring and reporting scope with Veeam ONE inclusion rules. This means a VM already consumed the license instance as it was monitored. Some time is required to unmonitor the VM, as far as I remember it could be up to 30 days.

Thanks

[mkaaden]

veeam-one-f20/dyamically-include-exclud ... ml#p487494

I can not access this link.
I get: "You are not authorised to read this forum." message.

I desperately need the information from that link.
I also get bugged by 'license exceeded' error's on VM's that do not need monitoring (decommisioned, archived, test, etc)
They are all collected in a particular vCenter VM Folder and there seems not to be an easy way to tell VeeamONE not monitor those VM's
Why not make use of the vCenter VM folder structure in VeeamONE just like in Veeam Backup ???

There is a structure in vCenter which most customers have carefully setup, but VeeamONE doesn't use it.
Weird !

[jorgedlcruz]

Hello,
You are right, I wrote that on the internal forums only, no worries, adding it here for visibility:

The inclusion/exclusion VMs support Business View, and the Business View supports anything from vSphere: vSphere Tags, multiple conditions, etc.

Perhaps a simple one is to exclude the Business view called No backup:

And this is the exclusion:


The only caveat is that the VMs will only start to be monitored once they have the first backup point, etc. And stopped being monitored if all the RP were deleted.

That is the easiest; the other option is to use vSphere Tags, create a Business view using that tag, or Tags, and include/exclude by those.

Let us know how it goes.

[mkaaden]

Created tags in vCenter.
Created a new Category and Group just for excluding irrelevant objects from using a license.
Now adding a condition on the tag property, however I get an empty pop-up screen when selecting the tags ...

But really: how hard is it to just have the abillity to exclude certain VM's in a VM Folder ...

[jorgedlcruz]

Hello,
Well, it is not difficult, and I am not sure what is happening on your side, look, I went to Business View, and created a new BV under the VMs tree. Making sure the single parameter is Virtual machine folder, because that is what you want to exclude it seems:

I've wait some time until all my folders appeared:

And, finally, I went to the Server Settings and excluded that folder:


Business View is a great and advanced filtering tool, that allows you later on to filter on reports and dashboards, perhaps too complex for what you were trying to achieve. Give it a try and let us know.

Thank you

[mkaaden]

Hi Jorge,

At first it worked, the instance used fell below the aquired instances

That was yesterday, today instance used is again above the aquired instances.
Now when I look in 'Apply Rule to' in the Exclusion rule, the rule is gone !

In the Business View that particular VM Folder with VM's not be monitored is also gone .... because it is empty now ???
But still those pesky VM's pop-up in other Categories
It does not make sense at all.
When random selecting on of those VM's is says: last protected: never ... which makes sense because they are exluded using the same VM Folder in Veeam Backup.
In the Veeam Backup console they also do not appeare under backups, well not under Disk or Disk (Copy) that is.
The do appear under Snapshots, which is also strange because within the Snapshot Job's this VM Folder is also excluded.

But I would like to file for a VeeamONE product enhancement to have VM Folder view at Infrastructure View level as well.
I do get that Business View is very powerfull in Filtering to specific sets of objects using variables and expressions ... for making reports that is. (imho)
But I think it is not be used for basic configuration of VeeamONE on server settings level. (again: mho)

Regards,
Martijn

[jorgedlcruz]

Hello Martijn,
Your feedback is noted. Are you using licensed SQL instance? I have seen erratic behaviour like this when using SQL express, due the limitations to 10GB of space.

Please let me know about the SQL used, and if you keep seeing these problems running proper SQL, I think the best course of action is to open a support case and let our Engineers take a look at the environment.

On my environment, what I did yesterday to show you how to filter our VM folders, still is there as expected.

As said, totally agree that the exclusions of monitoring/consuming licenses, should be simpler and more global, I agree.

We will try to add this to future releases.

Thanks a lot for your patience.

[mkaaden]

Hi Jorge,

Missed the notification email from the forum somehow.

Due to the size limitations of SQL Express the database was mopved to an SQL AG.
And it could be that I first setup the filter, observed the result, and then moved the instance to the AG ...
But not sure.

Regards,
Martijn