6.7

3 After receiving and validating the CSR, the SMS presents it to the VMCA on behalf of the VASA
provider, requesting a CA signed certificate.
The VMCA can be configured to function as a standalone CA, or as a subordinate to an enterprise
CA. If you set up the VMCA as a subordinate CA, the VMCA signs the CSR with the full chain.
4 The signed certificate with the root certificate is passed to the VASA provider. The VASA provider can
authenticate all future secure connections originating from the SMS on vCenter Server and on ESXi
hosts.
Snapshots and Virtual Volumes
Snapshots preserve the state and data of a virtual machine at the time you take the snapshot. Snapshots
are useful when you must revert repeatedly to the same virtual machine state, but you do not want to
create multiple virtual machines. Virtual volumes snapshots serve many purposes. You can use them to
create a quiesced copy for backup or archival purposes, or to create a test and rollback environment for
applications. You can also use them to provision application images instantly.
In Virtual Volumes environment, snapshots are managed by ESXi and vCenter Server, but are performed
by the storage array.
Each snapshot creates an extra virtual volume object, snapshot, or memory, virtual volume, that holds the
contents of virtual machine memory. Original VM data is copied to this object, and it remains read-only,
which prevents the guest operating system from writing to snapshot. You cannot resize the snapshot
virtual volume. And it can be read only when the VM is reverted to a snapshot. Typically, when you
replicate the VM, its snapshot virtual volume is also replicated.
Read Only Read Write Read Only
Storage Container
Base VVolSnap-001VVol Snap-002 VVol
The base virtual volume remains active, or read-write. When another snapshot is created, it preserves the
new state and data of the virtual machine at the time you take the snapshot.
Deleting snapshots leaves the base virtual volume that represents the most current state of the virtual
machine. Snapshot virtual volumes are discarded. Unlike snapshots on the traditional datastores, virtual
volumes snapshots do not need to commit their contents to the base virtual volume.
vSphere Storage
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