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Managing Snapshots

Snapshots allow you to save an image of a virtual machine (VM) or of selected volumes on a VM at a particular point in time. You can use a snapshot to create a new VM on the same everRun system or you can export the snapshot to files on a network share for use on another everRun system.

Caution: Creating a snapshot results in the conversion of any RAW format volume to QCOW2 format, which may have performance implications for your system. You cannot convert the volumes back to RAW format; therefore, if you have a particular requirement for RAW format volumes, avoid using the snapshot feature.

Notes:

You cannot revert the state of a VM to a snapshot; however, you can create a new VM from a snapshot or export files that you use to restore or duplicate the original VM.
When you create a snapshot, all volumes are selected, by default. You can, though, change the selection of individual volumes.
The boot volume is required for all snapshots.

You manage snapshots as described in:

The everRun system's ability to take snapshots is enabled, by default. To disable or to re-enable the system's ability to take snapshots, see Disabling and Enabling Snapshots.

To view the snapshots that you have created in the everRun Availability Console:

Open the Snapshots page (see The Snapshots Page)
On the Virtual Machines page (see The Virtual Machines Page), click a VM and click the Snapshots tab.

When you create a VM snapshot, the everRun system saves a snapshot image that includes any data that has changed in the VM since the previous snapshot, or, if no snapshots exist, since you originally created the VM. Because each snapshot contains only the changed data, some snapshots may take a small amount of storage space, and other snapshots may take more space depending on the level of VM activity and the amount of time that has passed since the previous snapshot.

Because snapshots are stored in the volume containers for each volume, ensure that you reserve enough storage space in the volume container for each volume you want to include in your VM snapshots, as described in Sizing Volume Containers. You can also remove older or obsolete snapshots to recover storage space.

You can create a snapshot of a VM whether the VM is running or shut down; however, if you want to create an application-consistent snapshot, where supported applications quiesce or freeze their operations to ensure data consistency, you must prepare your guest operating system as described in one of the following topics:

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Product Documentation (PDF Format) everRun User's Guide everRun Quick Start Guide	About Help Help created at 11:06 AM on 1/16/2019.