Creating a Snapshot of a VM

Taking and Restoring Snapshots

The VMware snapshot feature is especially useful in Labs or Production Systems where it is required to return to a known Vstarting point.

A VMware snapshot can be used to restore a VM should it become damaged (because the VMware snapshot retains the existing license).

• Ensure that the host has spare disk space on which to create and store the snapshot – each snapshot can take up to 50GB.
• Only perform the snapshot when the VM is idle – performing the snapshot will likely disturb the operation of the VM.

If you need to move a Fusion Server instances to a new host you must perform a host migration via vMotion.

Creating a VMware Snapshot

We strongly recommended performing a VMware snapshot only when the Fusion Server is idle (ie: no active sessions), in order to ensure reliability.

1. Select the relevant VM.
2. Right-click the VM and select Snapshot > Take Snapshot.
3. Enter name and description.
4. Ensure Snapshot the virtual machine’s memory is selected.
5. Click OK.
6. Wait for the “Create virtual machine snapshot” task to complete.

Restoring a VMware Snapshot

1. Select the relevant VM.
2. Right-click the VM and select Snapshot > Snapshot Manager.
3. Select the required snapshot image.
4. Click Goto.
5. Click Yes.
6. Click Close.

Incremental VMware Backups

If incremental backups are to be enabled, ensure that you follow the VMware Guides on 1st & 3rd Party Guest Backup Solutions.

Related Articles:

Best practices for virtual machine snapshots in the VMware environment

Understanding virtual machine snapshots in VMware ESXi and ESX