This is a nice way of saying that if something goes terribly wrong with your VM, things will start right up without issue should you need revert to a snapshot. It requires VMware Tools to be installed in the virtual machine. This stun is performed when the VM has finished current operations. Application consistency is great when it comes to backups. In an ideal world, we want to recover our applications in a consistent state, especially when they are applications like databases or things that are highly transactional.
The other type of snapshot is called crash consistent. It basically just takes a snapshot of whatever is happening on the VM at the time of the snap, and sometimes when you start the VM, it behaves like it has crashed previously.
Think filesystem checks when you start the VM. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it can take some time. Backing up your VMs in an application consistent manner, which is a really great idea. Your backup tool opens a VMware snapshot. Your backup runs. Your backup tool deletes the snapshot, which is a write intensive operation.
The last thing I wanted to do was architect my environment to be able to survive a backup window, but nonetheless we had to do it. The VMware snapshot is only open long enough for the storage snapshot to take place. In the case of NetApp yeah, I worked there too , it is near instantaneous. Taking a snapshot is quite easy in VMware. First, right click the VM you would like to Snapshot, and select Snapshot from the menu, you will see several options:.
Next you will have the ability to name your snapshot and give it a description. Make sure to put something that makes sense here, so you know the purpose of the snapshot. Great question! After you have taken your snapshot, you can then use VMware snapshot manager. From VMware Snapshot Manager, you have th ability to see more information on each of your snapshots, and manage them. Yes, you can even have multiple snapshots!
A snapshot of a snapshot. It is a bit like inception. Snapshot manager is nice because it gives you more information about the snapshot or snapshots, such as name, date, notes, and the size of the snapshot. The snapshot operations are:. By deleting a VMware snapshot , you are doing just that, deleting it. This is a bit of a simplification of the process. As I mentioned before, this process is resource intensive and may cause performance degradation.
VMware recommends not leaving a snapshot open for more than 72 hours, and depending on your application that could even be quite a bit of data to consolidate. In the case of reverting to a VMware snapshot, we are going back to the original VM state. This means we are basically throwing away the changes from when you took the snapshot. As noted earlier, snapshots are not meant to be a method of backup and recovery.
Always use a proper backup software solution in your datacenter. Snapshot manager can detect snapshots for individual VMs only. Third-party solutions are available that enable you to see and manage snapshots for multiple VMs, which gives you better control over your virtual environment.
For example, you can quickly spot and investigate unauthorized creation or deletion of snapshots across your virtual environment. Snapshots are a cool virtualization technology, but they should be used sparingly and with caution. Keep in mind that if you store sensitive or regulated information on your VMs, you need to manage your snapshots properly to avoid security and compliance issues. Go Up. Netwrix Blog. What is a VMware snapshot?
Snapshots are not intended to be used as a backup strategy. Handpicked related content:. Vladan Seget. Vladan Seget is as an independent IT consultant and professional blogger. Virtual environment Virtual machine VMware.
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