How to create and use VMs TAGs in Veeam Backup Jobs – TAGs Part 2 < ProVirtualzone

In the last article we focus in how to VMware: How to create and use VMs TAGs – Part 1 so before following this article and perform the next tasks, you should read the first article how to create the TAG before using them in Veeam Backup Jobs.

As we seen in the previous article, we have created TAGs in VMs with the following structure:

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There will be a TAG Category call ‘Guest OS’.

Name               Cardinality        Description
—-                 ———–             ———–
Guest OS        Single                   VMs System Operation TAG

Inside of this Category, we will have the type of TAGs OS.
These are the type of TAGs that VMs will have depending of the Guest System Operation

Name                Category             Description
—-                  ——–                   ———–
Linux                Guest OS             Linux Virtual Machine
Windows          Guest OS             Windows Virtual Machine
Other OS          Guest OS             Other OS Virtual Machine

Note: TAGs can only be added, or checked using vSphere Web Client. vSphere Client Tool will not provide TAGs information.

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So after we create the TAG structure we can start using them in Veeam Environment.

Create Windows VMS Backup Job using TAGs:

Just create a normal Backup Job.

In this example, we are creating a Backup for Windows VMs using the TAG Window.

Just click Add to choose the TAG and the VMs.

On this board, we select the TAG option (1) then we see the objects will change for “VMs and TAGs”. Then choose your vCenter (2), and you will see the Categories that exists in that vCenter (in our test is just the Guest OS that we created in the previous article) and then if we drill down the Category we will see all TAGs in that Category. Since this example is to Backup all Windows VMS, we will only select the TAG Windows (3). With this last option, all VMs inside of Windows TAG will be added to the Backup Job

Now we have added the TAGged VMs to our Job. In the column size, we should see the amount of size those VMs have (in our case is just one test VM that have a disk of 5Gb).
With the options we have to choose above, we will create a Job for all VMs that are TAGged with Windows TAG. We can select which ones we want to add, but by choosing the TAG name, we will add all VMs to the Job.

Next options are just the standard options that we select for our Backup Jobs. Those options depend on our Veeam Backup Environment.

After the last options, we finish the job, and we have created Windows VMs Backup Job using TAGs.

Next:

Create a Linux VMs Backup Job using TAGs:

Note: In the next example, we will only go through the menus that are different from the ones above, the rest of the options are the same, so we will not show.

We will add new Job and create for Linux.

Next, we will select the options:

Veeam TAGs (1)
vCenter (2)
TAG Category (3)
VM TAG (4) – In this option, we will drill down to see all VMs with the TAG Linux and select which ones we would like to Backup.

Select which VMs you want to Backup and click Add.

Again in the size column, we see the size that all those VMs we have select have (is not the space that this Backup will have, but only the space of the VMs).

The rest of the option (next boards) depends on you Backup Environment, and we show above.

Final Note: These Backups Jobs that we created here, were only for VMs TAGged. You can also create Jobs by Departments, by costumers, Groups of VMs (regardless of their OS), etc. There is a lot of possibilities here for you manage your Virtual Environment but also manage and organize your Veeam Backup Environment. You need to create VMs TAGs according to the needs of your company.

Don’t forget to use the script that we have added and discuss in the first article regarding TAGging: VMware: How to create and use VMs TAGs – Part 1

If need any help on the script, or how to do these TAGging tasks in vCenter or Veeam, feel free to contact me.

Hope this 2 articles will help you to understand TAGging and also how to use TAGs in Veeam Backups.

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