Snapshot best practices for Management Virtual Machines in VMware Cloud Foundation

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides guidance on the safety, risks, and retention best practices for using snapshots on VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) management plane components, including SDDC Manager, Aria Operations, Identity Broker, and Fleet Management.

Environment

• VMware Cloud Foundation 5.x

• VMware Cloud Foundation 9.x

• SDDC Manager

• VCF Operations (formerly Aria)

• VCF Automation

• VMware Identity Manager (Workspace ONE Access)

Resolution

Snapshots are safe for VCF Management Virtual Machines only when used as temporary checkpoints for maintenance tasks (such as patching or upgrades). They are not a substitute for backups.

Retention and Performance

1. The 72-Hour Rule: Do not retain any snapshot for more than 72 hours. Ideally, delete snapshots within 24–48 hours to prevent delta disk growth.
2. I/O Latency: Extended snapshot retention causes significant performance degradation due to the overhead of tracking changes in delta files.
3. Storage Exhaustion: Rapidly growing delta disks can exhaust datastore capacity, leading to sudden VM suspension.

Data Integrity Risks

• Database Desynchronization: VCF management appliances utilize internal PostgreSQL databases. Reverting to a stale snapshot (especially one older than 72 hours) can cause severe database desynchronization or corruption, as internal timestamps will no longer align with the wider VCF environment.
• Component Out-of-Sync: Reverting a single management VM (e.g., SDDC Manager) without reverting the entire management plane can break integration with vCenter and NSX.

Best Practices

Memory Snapshots: When creating a snapshot, uncheck Snapshot the virtual machine's memory unless specifically instructed by Broadcom technical documentation.

Additional Information

• Taking and restoring snapshots of the SDDC Manager appliance
• Best practices for using VMware snapshots in the vSphere environment