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VM snapshot retention-based removal in vSphere 8.0 Update 3

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VM snapshots are an extremely useful feature in vSphere but they can also be miss-used and retained for much longer than they should, sometimes weeks, months and even years! Sadly, having a forgotten VM snapshot for a year or longer is not actually as rare as you might expect and I have definitely heard some interesting stories from our field and customers.

While cleaning up a recent VM snapshot, I noticed a new option in the delete all snapshot workflow that now allow users to specify the age of the snapshot to remove which is a new feature in the latest release of vSphere 8.0 Update 3.


This makes it easy for administrators to quickly delete old snapshots without having to write any automation, which is typically how most users manage snapshot retention period including an event-driven approach using the VMware Event Broker Appliance (VEBA) solution.

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Preserving VM snapshot hierarchy across vCenter Servers

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On occasion, you might find yourself needing to take multi-level VM snapshots for various testing or development purposes, not an uncommon task for IT administrators.

In the past, if you needed to move the VM and preserve its snapshot hierarchy, it was usually difficult and involved manual tasks to unregister the VM and copying its files to the destination environment.


At VMware Explore last year, I had a customer who shared a nice tidbit regarding this topic with me that I was recently reminded of. By performing a Cross vCenter vMotion (not clone), the VM snapshot hierarchy is automatically preserved.

You of course can use the vSphere API and PowerCLI to initiate a Cross vCenter vMotion OR you can easily perform this operation by using the Advanced Cross vCenter vMotion capability that is built right into the vSphere UI, which can also be useful if you need to quickly cold migrate some workloads from older vSphere releases.

After authenticating into my source vCenter Server which is running vSphere 7.0 Update 3o, I simply select my VM with snapshots and perform a migration (not clone) and in a few minutes, it is now running in my vSphere 8.0 Update 2 destination vCenter Server!

Managing VM snapshot retention policies using the VMware Event Broker Appliance (VEBA)

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vSphere Snapshots is an amazing technology that has enabled our customers to do so many amazing things from application lifecycle and testing to operating system updates and many other use cases. Like any technology, if it is miss-used, the benefits can quickly turn into challenge or nightmare.

As Peter Parker once said, "With great power comes great responsibility" which I think is one way to summarize VM snapshot usage 😆


I am pretty sure that every VI Admin out there has at least one story about vSphere snapshots gone wrong. Due to the convenience, ease of use and some times miss-understanding of how vSphere snapshot works, it can lead to a number of issues including filling up your storage and impacting other running workloads.

Now, imagine if you could implement a snapshot retention policy for your VM(s) based on the size of a given snapshot or maybe the number of days the snapshot has existed? Would that not be cool!?

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