• This topic has 4 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated July 31, 2017 by Bobby S.

Report on Unprotected VMs in the environment

  • Bobby S
    April 4, 2017 11:00:08 PM

    I need to periodically review the VMs in our environment to determine that all the necessary VMs are being replicated/protected. Other than manually comparing a list of VMs in both the Zerto VPGs and the vCenter, how can one determine that there may be VMs that should be put under protection?

    It would be good if the Zerto system were able to produce a list of VMs in the vSphere environment and their protection status (protected, unprotected). The ability to export the list would also be helpful. Being able to mark a VM so as to designate that it is intentionally omitted from protection would be a bonus. With this information cataloged, it could easily be determined that a VM requires a determination that it be protected or not.

    Harry S
    April 5, 2017 12:21:26 PM

    Hi Bobby,

    We currently have a couple of ways of accomplishing what you’re saying.

    First, when you create a VPG you’ll see a list of currently unprotected VMs (5.0 will show you available VMs that are already currently protected with One-to-Many available, as well), and (I can’t remember off the top of my head if you can see that in the product currently) I believe you are able to filter that list.

    Second, we currently have some customers using the scripting examples from our “Automating ZVR with PowerShell and REST APIs” Whitepaper, under section 3.1: “Listing Unprotected VMs.” This along with the next few script examples will allow you to gather the information you are looking for, exclude VMs you wish to ignore in this list export, and you can also list the currently protected VMs if you desire. Additionally, there are script examples for automatically protecting any VMs that are discovered as currently unprotected.

    Check it out and let us know what you think! You can even build some custom reports that you can run to gather much (if not all) of what you need.

    ~Harry

    Follow me: www.twitter.com/HarrySiii
    Bobby S
    June 29, 2017 01:30:47 AM

    It’s been a while, but I’ve finally gotten to the task of creating this list. I’ve beat out the use of scripts as you’ve suggested. What I find is that the list of “Unprotected VMs” returned by the API include all VMs, protected and unprotected. There are only two fields returned by this method, so there is no way to further reduce the list.

    Is this a known issue or a bug with our version (Version 5.0 Update 2 Patch 1 Build 050211002)?

    As for the UI, the only time I can see the unprotected VMs is when I’m creating/editing a VPG. I cannot report from this level of the UI.

     

    Bobby S
    July 10, 2017 11:23:20 PM

    Harry… will you be able to bring any resources to bear on this question?

    Bobby S
    July 31, 2017 06:30:01 PM

    As of 17-Jul-2017:

    Zerto development has determined this is occurring due to a bug in the code.
    Evidently, the API call actually returns all VMs that are eligible to be added to a VPG.

    At Zerto 4.5.x and earlier, that was equivalent to all unprotected VMs.
    At Zerto 5.0, we introduced “One-to-Many” replication, which means that even VMs that are already in a VPG
    are technically eligible to be added to another VPG, which is why the API call now returns both protected and unprotected VMs.

    The fix for this bug (internal bug 27888) is being rolled into the next update, 5.0u4, which should be released soon.

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