Leave snapshots till weekend?

[darrinhomme]

Is it possible to leave the snapshots on the server until they can be consolidated on the weekend?

Thank you for any help.

[Gostev]

Hi Darrin, no there is no such functionality available. Thanks!

[joergr]

Darrinhomme,

as an additional Info: Snapshots on production machines should NEVER exist longer than necessary. A backup operation is a normal scenario where you would like to create a snapshot and remove it after the backup. Always be aware of the fact that snapshots will grow huge as data/blocks/activity occurs in the guest. Always think about the time window it takes to consolidate a snapshot. Just a snapshot during short time frame (for example during backup operation) is in most cases no problem at all, it consolidates very fast. But think about waiting for DAYS on let´s say an Exchange server carrying about 600 Mailboxes. The consolidation would take an enormous amount of time and this can also get you in a bad situation when looking at your free lun space. Snapshots are NOT backups and should never considered as such.

best regards
Joerg

[darrinhomme]

My purpose for asking wasn't to use snapshots as backups, but eliminate critical servers from locking up during consolidation. This locking, even for a brief time, is causing problems with our services during the evenings/early morning. I need a way to replicate VM's without locking out the server during the work week.

[Gostev]

Actually, this might be good idea to provide ability to select snapshot consolidation time for selected servers... need to think more on this...