Creating resource groups for VMs and datastores

A resource group is the container to which you add one or more VMs and datastores that you want to protect; called a backup job in Virtual Storage Console (VSC). For example, you can simultaneously back up all the VMs that are associated with a given application, or you can back up a single VM, or you can back up all the VMs in a datastore. Resource groups can contain any combination of VMs and datastores.

1. In the left Navigator pane of the VMware vSphere web client, click Resource Groups and then click (Create Resource Group).
   This is the easiest way to create a resource group. However, you can also create a resource group with one resource by performing one of the following:

   • To create a resource group for one VM, click > VMs and Templates then right-click a VM, select NetApp SnapCenter from the drop-down list, and then select Create Resource Group from the secondary drop-down list.
   • To create a resource group for one datastore, click > Storage then right-click a datastore, select NetApp SnapCenter from the drop-down list, and then select Create Resource Group from the secondary drop-down list.
   The Create Resource Group wizard begins.
2. In the General Info & Notification page in the wizard, do the following:

   For this field…	Do this…
   Name	Enter a name for the resource group. Do not use the following special characters in VM, datastore, policy, backup, or resource group names: % & * $ # @ ! \ / : * ? " < > - | ; ' , . An underscore character (_) is allowed. VM or datastore names with special characters are truncated, which makes it difficult to search for a specific backup.
   Description	Enter a description of the resource group.
   Notification	From the drop-down list, select when you want to receive notifications about operations on this resource group: Error or warnings: Send notification for errors and warnings only Errors: Send notification for errors only Always: Send notification for all message types Never: Do not send notification
   Email send from	Enter the email address you want the notification sent from.
   Email send to	Enter the email address of the person you want to receive the notification. For multiple recipients, use a comma to separate the email addresses.
   Email subject	Enter the subject you want for the notification emails.
   Use custom name format for Snapshot copy	If you want to use custom Snapshot copy names, select this checkbox and then enter a name format. By default, this feature is disabled. The default Snapshot copy names use the format <ResourceGroup>_<HostName>_<TimeStamp>. However, you can specify a custom format using the variables $ResourceGroup, $Policy, $HostName, $ScheduleType, and $CustomText. Use the drop-down list in the custom name format box to select which variables you want to use, and the order in which they are used. If you select $CustomText, enter the custom text in the additional box that is provided. A timestamp is automatically added to the end of the custom name format you specify. Special characters For special characters in names, follow the same guidelines given for the Name field.

3. On the Resources page, in the Available Entities list, select the resources you want in the resource group, then click > to move your selections to the Selected Resources list.
   
   By default, the Available Entities list displays the Datacenter object and the selection options display the datastores. You can click a datastore to view the VMs within the datastore and add them to the resource group.
   When you click Next, the system first checks that SnapCenter manages and is compatible with the storage on which the selected VMs or datastores are located.

   If the message Selected virtual machine is not SnapCenter compatible or Selected datastore is not SnapCenter compatible is displayed, then a selected VM or datastore is not compatible with SnapCenter. See the Troubleshooting section for more information on compatibility check failures.

4. On the Spanning Disks page, select an option for VMs with multiple VMDKs across multiple datastores:
   • Always exclude all spanning datastores [This is the default for datastores.]
   • Always include all spanning datastores [This is the default for VMs.]
   • Manually select the spanning datastores to be included
5. On the Policies page, select one or more policies from the list.

   To use...	Do this...
   An existing policy	Select one or more policies from the list.
   A new policy	Click Create Policy. Complete the New Backup Policy wizard to return to the Create Resource Group wizard.

6. On the Schedules page, configure the backup schedule for each selected policy.
   
   You must fill in each field.
7. Review the summary, and then click Finish.
   Before you click Finish, you can go back to any page in the wizard and change the information.
   After you click Finish, the new resource group is added to the resource groups list.