VMware vSphere SDKs and Tools 8.0

8.0 7.0 6.7 6.5

New VSS Support Added in vSphere 6.5

The vSphere 6.5 release included additional volume shadow-copy service (VSS) configurations and features. To support these new configuration and for more granular control over Windows guest OS quiescing, the function
CreateSnapshotEx_Task
 was added to the 6.5 vSphere API, superseding
CreateSnapshot_Task
.
CreateSnapshotEx_Task
 takes a
quiesceSpec
 parameter, of type
VirtualMachineGuestQuiesceSpec
 or
VirtualMachineWindowsQuiesceSpec
. The latter type can specify several important fields such as:
  • vssBackupType
     –
    VSS_BT_COPY
     was previously used as the default for
    CreateSnapshot_Task
     but now
    VSS_BT_FULL
    ,
    VSS_BT_INCREMENTAL
    ,
    VSS_BT_DIFFERENTIAL
    , and
    VSS_BT_LOG
     are available also. Log truncation may be triggered according to application settings.
  • vssBackupContext
     – this was introduced to enforce application (context
    VSS_CTX_BACKUP
    ) quiescing or file system (context
    VSS_CTX_FILE_SHARE_BACKUP
    ) quiescing.
  • The timeout (default 15 minutes) for quiescing virtual machines can now be configured anywhere from five minutes to four hours.
CreateSnapshotEx_Task
 requires VMware Tools 10.1.0 or higher installed on the backed-up virtual machine.

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