Creating a Snapshot

While a benefit of virtual volumes is that you can go to the array GUI/REST/CLI and perform per-VM or per-virtual disk operations, a primary advantage is that this can be done from within vCenter natively.

When you have a virtual machine that consists of vVols, you can use the vSphere Web Client (or any VMware management tool) to create array-based snapshots.

• For instance, the process to create a snapshot with the vSphere Web Client is as follows. Navigate to the Host & Clusters view and identify the target virtual machine. Then right-click on the VM and choose Snapshots and then click Take Snapshot.
• This will bring up the snapshot creation panel. In here, you can choose a name and one or neither of the following options.
  • Snapshot the virtual machine’s memory When you create a memory snapshot, the snapshot captures the state of the virtual machine's memory and the virtual machine power settings. When you capture the virtual machine's memory state, the snapshot operation takes longer to complete. You might also see a momentary lapse in VM response over the network (a ping or so).
  • Quiesce the guest file system When you quiesce a virtual machine during a snapshot, VMware Tools quiesces the file system in the virtual machine. The quiesce operation pauses or alters the state of running processes on the virtual machine, especially processes that might modify information stored on the disk during a restore operation. This does require VMware Tools to be installed inside of the VM.
• Purity//FA 5.1.3+ -- Snapshots will be a copy of the volumes for the VM that you are taking a managed snapshot of.
  • Here is a look at the volume group and the the config, data and data snapshot volumes.
  • Here is the Data volume for the VM running, you'll see it's connected to the host.
  • Then here is the the snapshot volume of the current data volume. Notice that it is not connected to any hosts and it is not a Pure Snapshot, but it's own volume.
• Pre Purity//FA 5.1.3 -- If you look at one or all of the data vVols on the FlashArray, you will now see their respective snapshots:
• The snapshot will also appear inside of VMware interfaces where it can be fully managed.