Feature Request: Intelligent Backup Job Membership Based on Combined VM Tag and ESXi Host Criteria

[Free Bird]

Hi Veeam Team,

I'd like to propose an enhancement to dynamic backup job inclusion for VMware workloads.

Current Requirement
We are designing a large-scale VMware backup environment where VMs should be automatically assigned to different backup jobs based on a combination of:

• VM Tag (e.g. backup_service)
  Current ESXi host name or host group

Example logic:

If VM Tag = backup_service AND ESXi host name contains "gfgv", add the VM to Backup Job A.

If VM Tag = backup_service AND ESXi host name contains "gfhl", add the VM to Backup Job B.

Current Limitation
Today, Veeam allows job membership to be driven by inventory objects such as:

Tags
Hosts
Clusters
Folders
Datastores

However, these inclusion sources effectively work as a union (OR logic) rather than allowing compound conditions.

For example:

Host contains "gfgv" OR VM Tag = backup_service

This does not allow organisations to dynamically assign workloads to different jobs based on multiple attributes simultaneously.

Use Case
In environments where VMs can be live migrated between ESXi hosts or between sites, backup policies often need to follow the VM's current location.

For example:

Site A hosts = gfgv*

Site B hosts = gfhl*

A VM tagged backup_service that moves from a GFGV host to a GFHL host should automatically transition from the Site A backup job to the Site B backup job without requiring manual administration or external automation.

Suggested Enhancement
Allow creation of intelligent backup job rules using logical operators such as:

Tag = backup_service AND HostName LIKE "*gfgv*"

or

(Tag = backup_service) AND (Cluster = Production_A)

Potentially via a rule builder supporting:

• AND

• OR

• NOT

• Contains

• Equals

• Regular Expressions (optional)

Benefits

• Reduces reliance on PowerShell automation.

• Simplifies large enterprise backup job design.

• Enables truly dynamic backup policy assignment.

• Allows backup policies to automatically adapt to workload mobility.

• Improves consistency in environments using vMotion and DRS.

• Reduces operational overhead and manual job maintenance.

I suspect many service providers and large enterprise customers would benefit from more advanced object-selection logic within backup jobs.

Interested to hear whether others have encountered similar requirements and how they have addressed them today.

Thanks!