By default, vSphere Lifecycle Manager takes snapshots of virtual machines before upgrading them. If the upgrade fails, you can use the snapshot to return a virtual machine to its state before the upgrade.

You can configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager to keep snapshots for an indefinite or fixed period of time. Use the following guidelines when managing snapshots.

  • Keeping snapshots indefinitely might consume a large amount of disk space and degrade virtual machine performance.
  • Keeping no snapshots saves space, ensures best virtual machine performance, and might reduce the remediation time. However, keeping no snapshots limits the availability of a rollback.
  • Keeping snapshots for a fixed period of time uses less disk space and offers a backup for a short time.

vSphere Lifecycle Manager does not take snapshots of fault tolerant virtual machines and virtual machines of virtual machine hardware version 3. If you decide to take snapshots of such virtual machines, the upgrade might fail.

If you configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager to automatically upgrade VMware Tools on power cycle for selected virtual machines, vSphere Lifecycle Manager does not take snapshots of the virtual machines before upgrading them and you cannot roll back.

Prerequisites

Required privileges: VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager. Configure

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager home view.
    1. In the vSphere Client, select Menu > Lifecycle Manager.
    2. Select a vCenter Server system from the Lifecycle Manager drop-down menu.
      The drop-down menu is available only when multiple vCenter Server systems are connected by a common vCenter Single Sign-On domain. By selecting a vCenter Server system, you specify which vSphere Lifecycle Manager instance you want to administer.
  2. On the Settings tab, select Cluster lifecycle > VMs.
  3. Click the Edit button.
    The Edit Default Settings for VM Rollback dialog box opens.
  4. Select the Take snapshot of VMs check box.
  5. Select the time period for keeping the snapshots.
    • Do not delete snapshots
    • Keep snapshots for a configurable, fixed period of time
  6. Click Save to save your changes and close the Edit Default Settings for VM Rollback dialog box.

Results

These settings become the default rollback option settings for virtual machines. You can specify different settings when you configure individual remediation tasks.