Exclude.vmdisk

The EXCLUDE.VMDISK option excludes a virtual machine disk from backup operations.

The EXCLUDE.VMDISK option specifies the label of a virtual machine's disk to be excluded from a backup vm operation. If you exclude a disk on the backup vm command, the command-line parameters override any EXCLUDE.VMDISK statements in the options file.

This option is available only if you are using the IBM Storage Protect for Virtual Environments licensed product. For more information about this option, see the IBM Storage Protect for Virtual Environments product documentation on IBM Documentation at https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/spfve.

EXCLUDE.VMDISK for VMware virtual machines

Use the EXCLUDE.VMDISK option to exclude a VMware virtual machine from backup operations.

Supported clients

Linux operating systems This option can be used with supported x86_64 Linux® clients.

Windows operating systems This option can be used with supported Windows clients.

Options file

Set this option in the client options file. Command line parameters override statements in the options file.

Syntax for VMware virtual machines

Parameters

vmname: Specifies the name of the virtual machine that contains a disk that you want to exclude from a Backup VM operation. The name is the virtual machine display name. You can specify only one virtual machine name on each EXCLUDE.VMDISK statement. Specify additional EXCLUDE.VMDISK statements for each virtual machine disk to exclude.; The virtual machine name can contain an asterisk (*), to match any character string, and question mark (?) to match any one character. Surround the VM name with quotation marks ( ) if the VM name contains space characters.; Tip: If the virtual machine name contains special characters, such as bracket characters ([) or (]), the virtual machine name might not be correctly matched. If a virtual machine name uses special characters in the name, you might need to use the question mark character (?) to match the special characters in the VM name.
For example, to exclude Hard Disk 1 in the backup of a virtual machine named "Windows VM3 [2012R2]", use this syntax in the options file: EXCLUDE.VMDISK "Windows VM3 ?2012R2?" "Hard Disk 1"
vmdk_label: Specifies the disk label of the disk that you want to exclude. Wildcard characters are not allowed. Use the Backup VM command with the -preview option to determine the disk labels of disks in a given virtual machine. See the "Backup VM" topic for the syntax.; Do not exclude disks on virtual machines that you are protecting with the INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS option, if the disks contain application data.

Examples

Options file

Assume that a virtual machine named vm1 contains four disks, labeled Hard Disk 1, Hard Disk 2, Hard Disk 3, and Hard Disk 4. To exclude disk 2 from Backup VM operations, specify the following statement in the options file:

EXCLUDE.VMDISK "vm1" "Hard Disk 2"

Exclude disks 2 and 3 from Backup VM operations:

EXCLUDE.VMDISK "vm1" "Hard Disk 2"
EXCLUDE.VMDISK "vm1" "Hard Disk 3"

Command line

The command line examples show the use of the exclusion operator (-) before the vmdk= keyword, to indicate that the disk is to be excluded.

Exclude a single disk:

dsmc backup vm "vm1:-vmdk=Hard Disk 1"

Exclude disk 2 and disk 3:

dsmc backup vm "vm1:-vmdk=Hard Disk 2:-vmdk=Hard Disk 3"

Exclude disk 1 and disk 2 on vm1:

dsmc backup vm "vm1:-vmdk=Hard Disk 1:-vmdk=Hard Disk 2"