Snapshots in Virtual Machines
Snapshots for virtual machines (VMs) are essentially saved states and data of a VM at a particular point in time. They capture the entire VM environment, including the operating system, applications, and data, allowing you to preserve the current configuration and state.
Snapshots are useful for several reasons:
- Backup: They act as a backup and allow you to revert to a previous working state if something goes wrong.
- Testing: You can test changes to your VM with a snapshot without affecting the original setup, and if things don’t work out, you can revert to the original environment.
- Migration: Snapshots can be used when migrating VMs across different environments or servers.
- Recovery: If your system crashes or experiences issues, you can restore it back to the state captured in the snapshot and minimize downtime.
However, snapshots should not be considered a replacement for regular backups, as they can sometimes grow large and affect performance if stored for long periods. They’re typically used for short-term purposes, like quick rollbacks or testing changes.
Getting Started with Snapshots on Doprax
To get started creating snapshots for your virtual machines on Doprax, navigate to the snapshot page on your dashboard by clicking the Virtual Machines dropdown. Click the Snapshots option.
Hit the Take a Snapshot button. A dialog box will open up, prompting you to select the virtual machine you want to take a snapshot of and give the snapshot a description.
After selecting a VM and giving it a description, hit the Take Snapshot button that is located at the bottom of the box. Wait for it to load and create.
After this is done, a snapshot of the chosen virtual machine will be created and stored. Refresh the page after some time if it hasn't shown the Available text.
The newly created snapshot will show up on your snapshots page, like this:
You'll be charged a fee of $0.1 for this snapshot creation.
Another way you can access your snapshot is directly from the dedicated virtual machine page.
First, open the virtual machine you want to take a snapshot of and click the Snapshots tab.
Hit the Take a Snapshot button and enter a description to take the snapshot.
If you want to delete a snapshot, simply click the red delete icon for the specific snapshot. Confirm that you want to delete it and it will delete the snapshot.