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Status Not under consideration
Created by Guest
Created on Oct 28, 2016

More flexible VMTAG processing

Version 7.1.6 gave us the possibility to use VMware TAGs to help control the exclusion of a VM and the Spectrum Protect (TSM) management class a VM should use.

Even if this is a great improvement, I think that it could easily be extended to give us much more flexibility.

I suggest a new TAG Category, for example "Backup Filtering (IBM Spectrum Protect)". This tag should be a free form string for each user to define.

To make use of this tag, new options should be created for the DOMAIN.VMFULL statement, like VMTAG=string1,string2 for backup inclusion, and -VMTAG=string3 for backup exclusion. The options should support a single string or a list of strings, and strings should support wild chars like * and ?.

The VMTAG= should limit the eligible VMs to those who match one or more of the tags, and the -VMTAG= should exclude VMs that match one or more of the tags.

You may also consider supporting INCLUDE.VMTAG string1 and EXCLUDE.VMTAG string3 in the options file and in server Client Option Sets.

Given these tools, a lot of the problems related to selection and exclusion of VMs for backup addressed in other RFEs could be solved.

Idea priority Medium