taking a snapshot of vm on ucs c220 m35?

[baselzind]

can anyone list the steps of taking a snapshot of a vm which i understand is a backup of the targeted vm , as i have three solarwinds vm on esxi 5.5?

[Philip D'Ath · Accepted solution]

General Info:

https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.vm_admin.doc%2FGUID-64B866EF-7636-401C-A8FF-2B4584D9CA72.html

How to take a snapshot in the web client.

https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/index.jsp#com.vmware.vsphere.vm_admin.doc/GUID-9720B104-9875-4C2C-A878-F1C351A4F3D8.html

[Kirk J · Accepted solution]

Please keep in mind a snap shot is not a real backup.  The current VMDK files get put in a read only state, and additional changes are written to delta files.  If issues occur with the original VMDK files, you will have non-functional VMs.  Snapshots are great for creating a point in time you can role back to short term, such as for OS patching.  The VMware article referenced recommends not leaving snapshots active for more than 72 hours.

Depending on what kind of OS is running in the VM, if it has databases running in it, live snap shots will not always get a 100% working state you can role back to.  If possible, powering off the guestVM first will ensure the guestVM OS doesn't have any locked files, and everything is is a consistent state when taking the snapshot.

Thanks,

Kirk

[baselzind]

i read somewhere that if i copy the vm folder on the ucs it can be regarded as a backup and i can deploy it again if the ucs broke down , is that true? can i do that to unity connection?

[Kirk J]

Copying off all the guestVM files including the VMDKs, can act as a  backup.

This will only work when the guestVM's OS is powered off.

Depending on where you are copying your VMDK files off to, it can sometimes be faster to simply redeploy from Unity or CUCM ova template, and then restore from application level backups/exports.

If your VM has thin provisioned disks, you will loose the small thin provisioning size, and it will become the full size on the target/destination.  Example: guestVM with 200GB thin provisioned disk, that is only using 25 GB of actual space on datastore, will turn into 200GB VMDK file on your USB NTFS volume attached to your workstation you are copying it to.

Thanks,

Kirk