This is an archive version of the document. To get the most up-to-date information, see the current version.

Grouping VMs by Department using Nested Methods

This example describes how to group VMs by department using nested methods.

Consider the following case: all names of VMs in the virtual infrastructure include a special suffix that indicates the department to which the VM belongs. According to this naming convention, the VM name has the following format: vmname_departmentname.

To automatically group VMs by department:

Create a category with the following properties:

Friendly name: Department
Group type: Dynamic
Object type: VM

For details on creating categories, see Creating Categories.

Choose to create dynamic groups within the new category and specify the following grouping expression:

Replace(Replace(Name, Left(Name, IndexOf(Name, "_")), ""),"_","")

The expression returns a suffix after the underscore character in the VM name, and includes a VM to a group with this suffix.

For details on creating dynamic groups, see Creating Dynamic Groups.

As a result, the Department category will display several groups named after the departments that can be found in the VM names.