Creating a Snapshot
The
VirtualMachine.CreateSnapshot_Task
method creates a new snapshot of a virtual machine. As a side effect, the current snapshot becomes the parent of the new snapshot.The method allows you to specify a name for the snapshot and also requires you set the
memory
and quiesce
properties:- memory– Iftrue, a dump of the internal state of the virtual machine (basically a memory dump) is included in the snapshot. Memory snapshots consume time and resources, and take a while to create. When set tofalse, the power state of the snapshot is set to powered off.
- quiesce– Iftrueand the virtual machine is powered on when the snapshot is taken, VMware Tools is used to quiesce the file system in the virtual machine. This ensures that a disk snapshot represents a consistent state of the guest file systems. If the virtual machine is powered off or VMware Tools is not available, the quiesce flag is ignored.
The
VMSnapshot.java
example calls this method as follows:ManagedObjectReference taskMor = service.createSnapshot_Task( vmMor, snapshotName, desc, false, false);
The method returns MOR to a
Task
object with which to monitor the operation. The info.result
property in the Task
contains the newly created VirtualMachineSnapshot
upon success.