Citrix Hypervisor snapshot refresher...

[Stephen D. Holder]

Greetings,

 

So, I know in VMware when dealing with snapshots, there is a “delete all” snapshot option that kind of combines all existing snapshots into the one VM. This saves space by cleaning up excessive snapshots a VM may have attached to it.

 

I recently came to a client that has Citrix Hypervisor. Question: does the “delete all” snapshot element exists in Citrix Hypervisor? I’ve been looking around and don’t really see it. Client has six (6) snapshots on a single VM, and I’d like to consolidate them all at the very least only have the latest snapshot as the main instance.

 

I’ve played around with a test VM and it looks like I can delete independent snapshots, but at the end there will always been the main base image with an attached snapshot.

 

Thoughts?

[Alan Lantz]

Yes, you delete all three snapshots and then everything is back in the base image and the screen is blank 

which should be like delete all snapshots in VMware.

 

--Alan--

 

 

[Tobias Kreidl]

There is no such option, AFAIK, unless you write a script to list and delete all snapshots for a VM.

 

-=Tobias

[Mark Syms]

You can highlight multiple snapshots in XenCenter and then delete them which will achieve the same thing.

[Stephen D. Holder]

Gotcha..

 

Ok, so in XenCenter, I’d delete everything not needed, and the last remaining object effectively becomes the new base for anything moving forward?

[Mark Syms]

Once you've deleted everything it should say "There are currently no snapshots of this VM"

[Stephen D. Holder]

Appreciate the response,

 

You’ll have to forgive my denseness as I must be having a brain freeze today. So, I took to the time to create a sample of what I’m dealing with.

 

If I’m understanding you correctly, in my example attached, I’d delete everything with a red arrow, leaving only the green arrow, which is the “Now”.

 

The “Now” object (snapshot?) has all the latest installs, patches, and everything I want to keep. I guess my concern is will deleting the initial Window 7 base file (most left red arrow) wipe out everything?

[Alan Lantz]

From Snapshots you shouldn't be able to delete base or now, just the snapshots in between.

 

--Alan--

 

[Stephen D. Holder]

Ahh right.. ok..

 

And yeah, that makes sense…. as each snap is dependent on the previous and base.

 

Ok, so then new picture...

 

I delete snaps in-between…and the latest snap (which in this example is U5) has all the latest patches, installs, etc – becomes part of the base image?

 

I’m trying to correlate or at least come up with an equivalent element of VMware’s “delete all snapshot” tool vs what is done in Citrix Hypervisor.

 

[Mark Syms]

No, you should delete base as well if you want to remove all snapshots, then the screen will go back to the empty one with the "There are currently no snapshots of this VM" message

[Alan Lantz]

I must be missing something, when I remove the last snapshot, base and ow disappear and "There are currently no snapshots of this VM" appears. I can't 

delete the base, I never have that option.

 

--Alan--

 

[Mark Syms]

Sorry, yes, you're quite correct Alan, there is no option to delete base or now so just deleting the three snapshots will leave it empty.

[Stephen D. Holder]

Thanks gents,

 

With your help, I spent a little bit of time going over the snapshot process… I knew it wasn’t difficult.

 

Two test VMs and couple snapshots later, I’m back in action. Was able to clean up / consolidate customer snapshots to just the base with the latest patches, etc. and no snapshots.

 

Guess I was so use to the “delete all” option -  I was thrown for a loop when I didn’t see an equivalate in Citrix Hypervisor. Turns out the equivalent of “delete all”  is a manual effort independently deleting the existing snaps, which is fine.

 

Issue resolved!