Speed up snapshot removal in ESX 5?

[Trichert2011101]

I have one very busy SQL server, a snapshot is created (quickly) when backups start, backups take about 2 hours, then removing that snapshot takes 6-8 hours.  What things can I do (realistic things, stopping SQL or shutting down the server not being options) to get the snapshot removal to occur in a more reasonable time frame?  Is there a way to prioritize it without completing stopping SQL?  I'm ok with SQL being slower during the removal to get it done?  

[Sreejesh_D]

try scheduling backup when transactions are less on SQL server (may be after EOB) and see the performance.

[Trichert2011101]

Unfortuanately, there is no such time.  This SQL server is constantly replicating with 50 clients, tempdb especially is heavily hit 24/7.  Ideally i'd like a way to limit SQL access to the disk during the backup period but not sure how to do this.  In Vsphere client I can limit the IOPS the VM has to the disk but not based upon a schedule either its always limited or not.

[AdamCSC]

If this system is that busy all the time and really no window of time when loads aren't occuring, your best bet is to use an agent based backup within the VM to backup SQL.  We have a few SQL server like this and use Symantec NetBackup as the solution.  On those SQL servers we have removed them from snapshot based backups and have the Netbackup SQL Agent running in the guest and use it to backup the data....that is our solution at least until VMware writes a better snapshot system for VMs....maybe in the next major version of vSphere.