Permanent exclusions from "Unprotected VMs" list

[evilaedmin]

Greetings,

Is there a method to permanently exclude items from the "Protected VMs" report "Unprotected" section? We have many workloads which are basically stateless at the VM level and we would like to exclude them.

Also, is it possible to trigger an alarm when new Unprotected VMs are found in the environment?

Thank you,
Eugene

[chris.arceneaux]

Hi Eugene,

You'll want to modify the exclusion mask report parameter. The below excerpt was taken from here.

Exclusion mask: defines a list of VMs that should be excluded from the report scope. You can enter VM names explicitly or create a wildcard mask by using the asterisk (*) to replace any number of characters. Multiple entries are separated by semicolon. Usage example: the following string will exclude machines with the _R&D suffix from appearing in the report: “*_R&D”.

[Shestakov]

Besides Exclusion mask, you can leverage powerful Business View engine to group VMs by preferred conditions.
Answering your second question, yes there are predefined alarm called "VM with no backup" and "VM with no replica". The sweet part of these alarms are new "Actions" tab.

[evilaedmin]

Hi,

Besides Exclusion mask, you can leverage powerful Business View engine to group VMs by preferred conditions.

Thank you. I am trying to create a category for excluded VMs:

Under Business View, Last Backup Date I modified the Grouping Expression like so:

Code: Select all

CASE
WHEN LastBackupDate > DateAdd(Today, -1, "d") THEN "VMs with daily backup"
WHEN LastBackupDate > DateAdd(Today, -7, "d") THEN "VMs with weekly backup"
WHEN TAG("Backup") = "excluded" THEN "VMs excluded from backups"
ELSE "VMs with no backups"
END

I tagged 4 VMs with Category: "Backup" Tag "excluded" (using this exact spelling and case).

But the new category does not appear. I have refreshed the view.

What log might I check for why Tags are not appearing? I may be having other problems with Tags and SOAP, as PowerCLI shows:

Code: Select all

get-tag
get-tag : 11/1/2019 4:15:19 PM  Get-Tag         vSphere single sign-on failed for connection 'https://vssoprd02a.domainsuffix:7444/sts/STSService/vsphere.local'. Future operations which require single sion this connection will fail. The underlying cause was: There was no endpoint listening at https://vssoprd02a.domainsuffix:7444/sts/STSService/vsphere.local that could accept the message. This is often
caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if present, for more details.

So it would be nice to prove/disprove if they are related.

[Shestakov]

I would try resolve the case with Multiple Conditions categorization method:
Create first group with RPO(Hours) < 24 AND Tag doesn't equal "excluded"
Second group with RPO(Hours) >= 24 AND RPO(Hours) < 168 AND Tag doesn't equal "excluded"
Third group with Tag equals "excluded"
Fourth group with RPO(Hours) > 168 AND Tag doesn't equal "excluded"

By the way, what behavior do expect from Business View if VM tagged as "excluded" has a backup?
Thanks!

[evilaedmin]

Hello again,

The release notes for v10 vONE say:

General Object exclusion rules based onvirtual machine Business View groups do not work in case grouping is made with “VM tag”, “VM folder”or “Custom Attribute/Property”.

Is this a newer bug or a regression? That is, is it possible to be what I am experiencing under 9.5u4?

Thank you,

[Shestakov]

Hello Eugene,
It's not a new thing.
Do you use Business View groups to exclude VMs from monitoring?
Thanks

[evilaedmin]

Do you use Business View groups to exclude VMs from monitoring?

I am indeed trying, specifically by tag.

[Shestakov]

Business View can be used with no issues for alarms, reports etc. except exclusion of objects from monitoring.
The issue is once object is excluded from monitoring, it becomes excluded from Business View groups which stops the exclusion from the monitoring. Then VMs appear in BV groups and the loop repeats.