Is it still true, you Can't Migrate a Snapshotted VM?

[CWedge]

This seams like a HUGE planning issue.

Once you create a VM and snapshot it...it has to stay there forever...or until VMWare makes a fix?

[admin]

No you can migrate a VM with existing snapshots, VC warns that you may get an error on revert, but I've found in practice there are no issues reverting or comitting after a vmotion/cold migrate of a VM with an existing snapshot.

Be warned though, snapshots on the whole are quite flakey (imo) under ESX3.0.1, if you use them extensively or intend to leave a VM snapshotted for more than a few weeks, you will run into issues comitting the snapshots.

[CWedge]

Good to know.

Thanks!

[CWedge]

CAn't migrate between storage though

[bertdb]

the warning in VC is there to indicate that if you try something impossible, you might not be able to revert to a situation you thought you had saved:

\- connect VM to iso image on local VMFS "storage1" on server1

\- snapshot VM and call it "CD-connected"

\- disconnect iso from VM

\- migrate VM to server2, that doesn't have that iso image on "storage1"

\- try to revert to "CD-connected" snapshot

This is what's impossible. We don't check whether all resources you ever needed for previous states are there on the destination server. Only the \_current_ resources need to be there.

So as long as you

a) didn't use local resources while snapshotting

or

b) never revert to previous states (just snapshot for VCB maybe ?)

that's not going to be a problem.

[CWedge]

My error was that the Migration was "NOT POSSIBLE" at all...end of story.

big RED X...

All I wanted to do was move a VM off a full LUN to another LUN.

[ejward]

I'm getting the same thing. If you can't "Migrate" a VM with a snapshot, I guess that means you can't "vmotion" a VM with a snapshot.

If you can't vmotion a VM with a snapshot, how does HA and DRS work? Or does it?

[Bastien_P]

For what its worth.. Got this from a vm tech support. HA DRS work with snapshot but nooot recommanded and more important... Not supported if anything goes wrong. In brief, snapshot are test/lab tools...

[kix1979]

You definitely CAN vMotion with snapshots. It works fine with DRS/HA.

[ejward]

Actually, you're right. You get a couple of warnings but vmotion does work. I'm trying to migrate the VM from SAN storage to local storage. I'm just wondering why it can't move the snapshots too. You can do this in Vmware Workstation, why not ESX?

[medavid1]

I am confused. I can not migrate a VM that has snapshots, let alone migrate with VMotion. The only resolution listed here is that "there is one."

I get the error

"Unable to migrate from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. Unable to access the virtual machine configuration: Unable to access file.

\[storage_name]VMname/Snapshotname/filename"

If there are no snapshots, I do not get this error

[admin]

I always recommend not to use snapshots if a backup is required run a backup by doing a "VCB Snapshot" via the Service Console

[AndyE]

Just tried to migrate a guest that has a snapshot to 2 different destinations.

The operation failed with "Operation timed out".

After removing the snapshop it worked.

Source was build 34176 testdestionations were a build 34176

and a Build 42829.

Network connectivity is ok (checked with vmkping)

Servers are identical (checked with cat /proc/cpuinfo)

[gogogo5]

I have found that you can vMotion a VM with a snapshot adn get the warning message but you cannot cold migrate a VM with a snapshot between different storage targets i.e. from LUN1 > LUN2

[ejward]

it seems as though the snapshot feature in VI3 was one of those things they threw in there because the user community said "hey, why doesn't ESX have a snapshot feature like Workstation"? For me, shapshots are unusable.

We use ESX ranger for backups of VMs. Don't get me wrong, it's a great product and it cheap. it'll pay for itself. I was speaking to someone at vizioncore yesterday. Their backup product can't back up a VM if it has snapshots. ESX Ranger does it's own snapshot then zips up that snapshot. They gave me a song and dance saying it was because of the way Vmware does it's snapshots. It didn't really make sense to me but the bottom line is ... you can't backup a VM with ESXRanger if you have a snapshot.

[gogogo5]

thats interesting, we use esxRanger 3 and can backup VMs with snapshots. Are you saying that you can backup a VMs with a snapshot but cannot restore it or plain can't do backups i.e. it fails.

See here also:

http://supportforums.vizioncore.com/forums/thread/3262.aspx