Process for Recomposing and maintaining a single snapshot

[silverline]

I have found this process cumbersome and was just wondering the communitys thoughts or if I am missing something.

We are still in early trials of VDI at our company and have been working to allow for a streamlined resompose/refresh process which will allow us to refresh images on a regular basis for security as well as recompose to apply updates.

When we recompose right now the process goes: power on golden VM, apply updates, power down, take snapshot, recompose in view-connection and select the new snapshot.

This is where it always feels awkward.  When I select the snapshot - if the previous snapshot still exists - the new snapshot shows up as a subitem of this old snapshot.  If I select this the recompose works fine but now I have two snapshots when I really only want one.  So I go back in vcenter to delete the old snapshot and this seems to work okay.  Until I go back to view connection and see that my pool no longer has a snapshot selected.  I can resleect it again and all is fine, but it seems like the program is expecting me to keep snapshots used over time indefinitely and I don't undertand why this would be the case.

Also, I've had one time an entire pool get corrupted after I deleted a snapshot so I am very catuious of doing this in the wrong order.

So I was just wondering - do others out there try also to keep one snapshot (or only a couple) or is everyone just keeping all snapsshots for their VDI golden images forever?

If people are using only one - what is the step by step process used to perform an update and recompose ending with just one snapshot?

[gunnarb]

I'd say its good practice to keep a couple snapshots.  I normally keep the fresh OS install (incase I have to give up and go back to the beginning), then I keep the previous snapshot (incase the current snap ends up having issues), and of course the current snap.

When the current snap is ready to get and update, then the "current" snap becomes the "previous", and I end up deleting the original previous snap.  When you delete, you need to go into your pool and fix the path of your snaps, otherwise the deck of cards come crumbling down as you have seen.

It would be nice if View was smart enough to change the snap path automatically, this would help with snap management.  But unfortunately that's not how it works for now.

I also have no issue with keeps snaps indefinately.  After all the MasterVM is never used in production so having multiple snaps on that VM isn't going to cause any performance issues.

Gunnar

[royberk]

Maybe Im misreading, but my process is as follows: (keep in mind I only every keep 2-3 snapshots)

Turn on Parent VM

Make Changes

Turn off Parent VM

Create New Snapshot

Delete Old Snapshot

THEN, I go into Recompose via View.

I am able to select the New snapshot and the path changes once its completed. The old snapshot no longer appears within View.

[gunnarb]

that sounds right to me

[mittim12]

I follow a simliar path as Gunnar and always keep my previous known working snapshot in place.   At the very least until I have deployed the new snapshot to the  entire pool and it has been vetted accordinely.    I also can't ever recall having issues with deleting snapshots and having to go back in and select a new one unless I deleted the one that was set as the current image.