To make simple Azure VM snapshots, you can write your own tools. When operating VMs in the Microsoft Azure cloud, you’ll be in for an unpleasant awakening if you’re used to right-clicking on a VM in your preferred hypervisor and creating a snapshot.
A VM is frequently back up or given a snapshot. You may occasionally need to back up a virtual machine (VM) now in order to recover it later. It’s not quite as simple as clicking a couple of times in the Azure cloud, though.
A fantastic moment to create and use your own unique tool is when a procedure isn’t as simple as you believe it should be.
How do Azure snapshots function? What are they?
The purpose of Azure VM Snapshots is to provide administrators with a reliable backup of the virtual machine disks in case something goes wrong. Additionally, VMs can be created using Azure VM Snapshots. Using PowerShell or the Azure CLI, users can create Azure VM snapshots.
- When the machine is off and the Azure snapshot is being created, the disk consistency is improved. If the VM hasn’t been turned off previously, it will be at the time of the snapshot.
- Snapshots cost money and can have a detrimental impact on performance, so don’t leave them around for longer than necessary.
- Azure VM Snapshots should not be used as a long-term backup method. Use Azure Backup instead because it eliminates the need for human interaction, lowering the risk of human error and other issues.
- An Azure snapshot can be used by IT teams to carry out actions like:
- Troubleshoot VM issues.
- Custom backup
- Disaster recovery
- Overwrite OS disks without recreating a VM
- Restore and rebuild a VM.
- Make a copy of a VM.
How to Install the Azure VM Snapshots Disk Module?
Since the AzureVMSnapshots module is accessible through the PowerShell Gallery, installation is simple. To download and install the module, typeInstall-Module AzureVMSnapshots into the command line.
How To Create a Snapshot With Azure Virtual Machine Snapshot?
Use New-AzVmSnapshot to create a fresh snapshot.
The name of the VM and the resource group in which it is situated is the only two parameters needed for the New-AzVmSnapshot. creating a snapshot for the Demo resource group’s virtual machine named VM1.
This could take a few minutes to complete after it is started. Azure is halting the VM and making a snapshot in the background. The OS disk is captured by this cmdlet.
New-AzVmSnapshot -VmName VM1 -ResourceGroupName 'Demo'
Discovering accessible snapshots
A specific schema will be preserved in the name of each snapshot you make. The Get-AzVmSnapshot command for the AzureVMASnapshot module will only return snapshots made with the module, regardless of whether you’ve created other Azure VM Snapshots in other ways.
An example of retrieving every photo from the Demo resource group is shown below.
Get-AzVmSnapshot with the resource group 'Demo'
Bringing Back Snapshots
You might want to restore a snapshot if you accidentally made changes to the virtual machine. You can pipe a snapshot obtained from Get-AzVmSnapshot to the Restore-AzVmSnapshot command, as shown in the example below, to restore snapshots.
Get-AzVmSnapshot -ResourceGroupName 'Demo' -VmName VM1 | Restore-AzVmSnapshot
After this command has been executed, you will be asked if you actually want to restore the VM. If so, the VM will be terminated and the snapshot disk will take the place of the original source disk.
Restore-AzVmSnapshot will leave the previous disk behind by default. Use the RemoveOriginalDisk argument to get rid of it after restoration is finished.
Taking Snapshots out
You can use the Remove-AzVmSnapshot command to get rid of any snapshots or sets of snapshots that you are no longer using. Similar to recovering a snapshot, removing one involves pipelining the snapshot from Get-AzVmSnapshot to Remove-AzVmSnapshot.
Get-AzVmSnapshot -ResourceGroupName 'Demo' -VmName VM1 | Remove-AzVmSnapshot
