VMware vSphere 5.5 Cookbook

Creating a virtual machine snapshot

There are times when you need to save the current state of an application's or operating system's configuration before you experiment with a change. A real-life example would be during a system development life cycle where changes are inevitable, and you need the ability to undo a change. vSphere allows you to save the state of a virtual machine regardless of its power state.

A virtual machine snapshot can capture the following data:

• The contents of the virtual machine's memory
• The virtual machine's settings
• The state of the virtual disks

For you to perform snapshot operations on a virtual machine, you need to be connected to the vCenter Server either by using vSphere Web Client or vSphere Client, or by using the ...