Using TAGS in vsphere 5.1 to store backup info

[JasonJoel]

We used to use the NOTES attribute for other purposes, but when we started using VEEAM we enabled the feature to store the VM backup info in the NOTES field.

I was curious, now that vSphere 5 supports a manageable way to make tags, can the VEEAM backup info be stored in a TAG? That would free up the NOTES field for other uses.

EDIT: I should also explain that we are trying to force ourselves to use the WEB client - which doesn't support custom attributes well. So dumping the VEEAM status into a custom attribute isn't a great answer for the web client (as far as I can tell).

Jason

[chrisdearden]

hi Jason,
at the moment , I don't believe VMware has exposed the tags functionality in an available API. Its something we've asked for internally and will keep pushing, especially if we get a way to pick up Tag information in the API.

[Gostev]

I checked with VMware shortly after this feature was released. There is no API available at the moment, and I don't believe it is coming any time soon. Very sad, as this kind of makes this whole feature useless, because manual tag assignment is hardly manageable beyond a few dozens of VMs...

[JasonJoel]

Agreed. It is a little pointless in its current form. Well, maybe VMware will catch on eventually...

[dellock6]

Also because VMware itself showed some really cool use cases for tags, at least in vCloud Director, like this one:

http://blogs.vmware.com/vcloud/2013/01/ ... d-app.html

Anton, I read in other thread you are going to support REST APIs, any idea also about VCO (vCenter Orchestrator) workflows?
A good use case would be the automatic creation of backup jobs when a new tenant is created inside vCloud Director, a scheduled job would run to see if there are new tenants in vCloud, check if they are already saved in a job, and if not will automatically create a new backup job in Veeam.

Right now I have some powershell script that check for resource pools creation and list them by creation date, but I would say 90% of the activity is made by hand, and when the environment needs to scale (as in a vCloud environment) the more automation we can introduce, the better.

Luca.

[flavor4real]

We used to use the NOTES attribute for VEEAM to store the VM backup info in
the NOTES field.

Looks like vSphere 5.1 does not support this anymore. I looked into tags
but that something totally different.

Just wanted to check if a solution for it is out there ....

[veremin]

In vSphere 5.5 VMware has introduced PowerCLI commands to deal with tags. So, once the VB&R patch#2 that adds vSphere 5.5 support is released, you will be able to create a custom script that assigns custom tags to VMs, according to your needs or desires.

Thanks.

[Gostev]

Looks like vSphere 5.1 does not support this anymore.

First time I hear. Are you sure about this? I actually received a minor feature request on this functionality from one VMware guy who tested B&R v7 on his vSphere 5.1 lab (append vs. overwrite the content of Notes attribute, he complained we overwrote some useful information he used to store there).

[tsightler]

vSphere 5.1 and 5.5 continue to support legacy "custom attributes", however my understanding is that there is only limited support for them in the vSphere Web Client (I believe they can be displayed but not created there, but I could be wrong) and VMware officially positions "Tags" as replacements for custom attributes in it's documentation, including a section on migrating custom attributes to tags and KB articles on this migration. I personally believe that custom attributes will be around for quite some time as I know tons of customers, including many very large ones, that depend on them for their management functions, but at least in 5.5 tags are now exposed via the APIs so perhaps we'll start seeing more efforts to migrate to tags.

[GabesVirtualWorld]

Can Veeam now publish the result of the backup to the tag instead of custom attribute?

[Vitaliy S.]

Linking to another thread > vCenter custom attributes

[Lyle]

In an old incarnation of our Veeam B&R installation, backup jobs would update the "Notes" field for the VM, when seen in vCenter. Included in the field contents was job name, date & time of the backup, backup host, etc.
It actually was kind of wordy, and I never tried to fine-tune it, but it was an easy way to check status when looking down the list of VM's seen in vCenter.

I've recently got a new installation of B&R 7.0.0.771, and the only managed server besides Veeam is the vCenter running 5.5.0
Now I notice that the Notes field no longer gets updated with job completion information.

Any ideas? Thanks...Lyle

[foggy]

Lyle, you can find some observations regarding custom attributes support in recent vSphere versions in the thread above. However, this does not mean the "Notes" attribute should not be populated with backup details after job is completed. If the corresponding check box is selected in the job settings (note that it is not selected by default) and you see empty attribute values, I recommend contacting support for investigation.