Abiquo and VM snapshots for VMware

Abiquo 6.0 introduces a VMware Snapshot feature for VMs. This new feature offers the VMware snapshot directly to the VM user, with easy-to-use buttons on the VM control panel. This feature enables users to easily create a single snapshot before they make changes to their VM, and revert, or delete the snapshot afterwards. This feature greatly simplifies the use of VM snapshots and will save time for your System administrators. This feature replaces the VM snapshot functionality that was part of the Abiquo Backup feature.

Configure VM snapshots

The VMware snapshots feature has the following Abiquo properties, which you can set on the Abiquo API server. See Abiquo configuration properties

Property	Description
abiquo.snapshot.autodelete.polling.minutes	Time to wait between each check for expired snapshots. Default: 30
abiquo.snapshot.autodelete.hours	Time that a snapshot lives before it expires. An expired snapshot is still usable until the check for expired snapshots deletes it. If the value is 0, then there is no limit and the snapshots will never expire. Default: 0
abiquo.snapshot.autodelete.hours.limit	Maximum snapshot lifetime that a privileged user can configure when they take a snapshot. If the value is 0, then there is no limit to the snapshot lifetime Default: 0

To override the default values, you can also set these properties as Enterprise properties for a specific tenant. See Set enterprise properties to store tenant details and metadata.

And a privileged user can override the properties for autodelete.hours when they create a snapshot.

Changes to these properties will affect new snapshots; they will not affect existing snapshots.

Manage VM snapshots

The VM snapshot feature has the following privileges.

Manage VM snapshots
View enterprise snapshots list
Manage snapshot autodelete
Manage snapshot autodelete expiry date

See Privileges for details of the default user roles that the privileges are assigned to.

Use VM snapshots

After you deploy a VM, to take a snapshot, click the camera button .

Enter a Name and an optional Description. If the VM is powered on, you can store the memory as part of the snapshot. And you can also select the option to Quiesce file system, which requires VMware tools on the VM.

You can set the checkbox to Enable autodelete for the snapshot if you have the privilege to to Manage snapshot autodelete. And you can set a date and time to automatically delete the snapshot if you have the privilege to Manage snapshot autodelete expiry date. The maximum snapshot lifetime is controlled by an Abiquo property or an enterprise property.

After you create a snapshot, it will display on the Snapshots tab of the VM Details panel, and you can manage it from here. To Revert to snapshot, click the camera back-arrow button. To Delete snapshot, click the camera x button.

You can also take another snapshot, which will overwrite the existing snapshot because Abiquo only stores ONE snapshot at a time.

Take a VM snapshot from the VM control panel

When you revert a VM to the snapshot, you will overwrite the current state of the VM and it will be lost.

If you restore a VM when it is powered on, after the restore, the VM will be in a powered off state.

You can select the option to suspend (pause) the VM while reverting, and if the snapshot has the VM memory, it will revert to a paused state. If the VM doesn't have memory, it will always be powered off.

If you undeploy a VM, then the platform will automatically delete its snapshot.

To display snapshots on the dashboard, add the widget for Virtual machine snapshots.

Add the virtual machine snapshots widget to your dashboard

If the user has the privilege to View enterprise snapshots list, this widget will display all of the snapshots in the user's tenant.

Display VM snapshots of the enterprise on the dashboard

To go directly to a VM with a snapshot, double-click on the snapshot entry.