Practices Guide

Active System Manager Virtual Appliance Best Practices for VMware

This pattern continues with each additional snapshot, resulting in what is called the “snapshot chain.”

It is important to remember:

 Snapshots do not replace a comprehensive backup strategy.

 Use snapshots prior to applying a guest operating system or application patches.

 Specifically for Active System Manager, create a snapshot prior to applying Active System

Manager patches or making fundamental configuration changes. See VMware documentation for

instructions on creating and managing VM snapshots.

The best practice is to have only one snapshot in the snapshot manager at all times, because VM

snapshots can quickly outgrow the base VMDK. Also, it is recommended to commit snapshots to the

base disk at least once every week (click Delete All in snapshot manager). This keeps the size and the

amount of data stored in temporary snapshot files to a minimum, helps to prevent data loss, and

improves server performance.

For example, if making major upgrades to a program such as Microsoft® Exchange, then best practices

include:

 Commit all snapshots to the base disk (server-flat.vmdk) by clicking Delete All in snapshot

manager.

 After committing the snapshots, take a new snapshot. Make sure to label it with an informative

description—for example, you might include the date and time the snapshot was taken.

 If server changes cause instability that requires reverting to a previous state, then open

snapshot manager, highlight the desired snapshot, and click Revert. This will return the server

to the exact state of the indicated snapshot. Keep in mind that any new files created since the

snapshot to which the server is reverting will be completely deleted and unrecoverable.

For detailed information about VMware snapshots, see

http://kb.VMware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=

1025279.

Updating the Active System Manager Virtual Appliance

Updating the Active System Manager virtual appliance upgrades the software to the most recent

version, including any operating system security patches that are required. For detailed instructions on

updating the virtual appliance, see the Active System Manager User Guide.

Best practices for updating the virtual appliance include:

 Use vMotion to apply ESX patches to the Active System Manager appliance without causing

solution downtime.

 Make sure that the Active System Manager appliance runs inside a vSphere cluster, and that the

cluster has enough available capacity to sustain placing any one host into maintenance mode.

 If DRS is disabled, then manually use vMotion to migrate all host VMs to other available servers.