Snapshot - Quiesce or not?

[Razorhog]

I'm taking a snapshot for the first time in vCenter Server and noticed the option to "Quiesce guest file system". Looking at the help file says "pause running processes on the guest operating system so that file system

contents are in a known consistent state when the snapshot is taken. This

applies only to virtual machines that are powered on."

I don't really understand what it does or if I need to use it. Can someone explain? The host is ESXi 4 and the Guest is XP SP3.

[pdahandyman]

The function of this option is to be able to take a snapshot of a running VM in a way that makes the snapshot work like it was taken when the VM was not running. It is best to take a snapshot of a VM which is not running since it doesn't have to account for open files and other OS elements which are in a constant state of flux. I personally do not take snapshots of live VMs because they can end up being problematic if you need to roll a change back because of a configuration change failure, but I suppose there are times when you can't avoid it. Of course, if you have a single node instance running an extremely critical application or service, you might want to consider some form of replication or failover. If you already have replicants in place or a failover plan, then you should be able to bring one down at a time and snapshot it properly in an offline mode.

Hope that helps!

Tyler Regas

MSPBoards.com

ManagedNet Inc.