Understanding and Configuring VMware Virtual Machine Snapshot Options

In the previous post, we have discussed a lot about virtual machine Snapshot. However, we focused on VirtualBox in that post. Regardless of the virtual platform you are using (VirtualBox, VMware, or Hyper-V), the concept of virtual machine snapshot remains almost the same for all the virtualization platforms. However, the options and configuration steps are slightly different for each virtual platform. In this post, we will focus on VMware virtual machine snapshot.
A snapshot of a virtual machine saves its current state and allows you to return to the same state whenever required. When you take a snapshot, VMware Workstation captures the entire state of the virtual machine. You can take a snapshot whether the virtual machine is powered on, powered off, or suspended.

Taking a VMware Virtual Machine Snapshot

To take a snapshot of a virtual machine running on VMware Workstation, you need to perform the following steps:

1. Select the desired virtual machine, click VM, select Snapshot, and then select Take Snapshot.
2. On the Take Snapshot dialog box, type a name and description for the snapshot, and then click Take Snapshot to take the snapshot. 

Configure VMware Virtual Machine Snapshot Options

You can also configure snapshot options as per your requirements. You can decide what should happen when you power off the virtual machine. The available snapshot options in VMware Workstation are:

• Just power off: Allows you to power off the virtual machine without making any changes to snapshots
• Revert to snapshot:: Allows you to revert the virtual machine to the configured snapshot.
• Take a new snapshot: Allows you to take a new snapshot of the virtual machine state when it is powered off.
• Ask me: Allows you to prompt to power off or take a snapshot when the virtual machine is powered off.

To configure the snapshot options for a selected virtual machine, select Snapshots under the Options tab. Select the desired snapshot options.

Using VMware Snapshot Manager

Additionally, you can also configure advanced snapshot options using the Snapshot Manager window. To open the Snapshot Manager window, click VM and navigate to Snapshot Manager.
Snapshot Manager allows you to take a new snapshot or delete the selected snapshot. Further, you can also create a clone of the selected virtual machine. One more interesting feature of the Snapshot Manager that we would like to explain is AutoProtect Snapshot virtual machine.

Configuring VMware AutoProtect Option

The AutoProtect feature preserves the state of a virtual machine by taking snapshots at regular intervals. However, you can also take manual snapshots whenever you wish.
To configure AutoProtect options for a selected virtual machine, either select AutoProtect under the Options tab or click AutoProtect in the Snapshot Manager window. The configurable options for the AutoProtect feature are:

• AutoProtect interval
• Maximum AutoProtect snapshots

Note: Both the AutoProtect options are self-explanatory.