How to consolidate snapshots in VMware ESXi 5.0

What is snapshot consolidation?

Snapshot consolidation is nothing but committing snapshots.

When snapshot consolidation is required ?

• The snapshot commit fails due to locked files. For details on how to release the lock on locked files
•  There is a temporary loss of communication between the vCenter Server and the ESXi/ESX host during snapshot commit. To refresh the connectivity, restart the ESXi/ESX host management agents.

 What happens when delete or delete all is iniatiated on snapshots?

When "delete" or "delete all" is iniated on snapshots, snapshot details are deleted from snapshot manager, then snapshot files well be consolidated and merged to another snapshot files or the virtual machine's parent disk.

What happens when snapshot consolidation fails?

If consolidation fails, there were no snapshot details in snapshot manager, but still the snapshot files exist in the datastore and cause the datastore to run out of disk space.

Note: The ESXi host that the virtual machine is registered on must be an ESXi 5.x host.

 

Checking if virtual machine consolidation is required

To check if virtual machine consolidation is required:

1. Select a vCenter Server host or a cluster and click the Virtual Machines tab.
2. Right-click the menu bar for any virtual machine column and click Needs Consolidation. The Needs Consolidation column appears.
    

A Yes status indicates that the snapshot files for the virtual machine should be consolidated and that the virtual machine's Tasks and Events tab shows a configuration problem.
A No status indicates that the files are OK.

Note: A Configuration Issue warning is also displayed in the Summary tab of the virtual machine indicating that virtual machine disk consolidation is needed.

Consolidating snapshots for a virtual machine

To consolidate snapshots:

1. To consolidate the snapshot files, right-click the virtual machine and click Snapshot > Consolidate.
2. Check the Need Consolidation column to verify that the task succeeded.
    
   If the task succeeded, the Configuration Issues message clears and the Needs Consolidation value is No.

Note: The consolidate option allows you to consolidate the snapshots when there are no snapshots shown in the Snapshot Manager, but does not fix the underlying issue that may have caused this to occur initially.