Snapshots of a Virtual Machine environment.

A snapshot of a virtual machine environment is a point-in-time representation of the virtual machine’s virtual disk and configuration. It captures the state of the virtual machine, including the contents of its memory, virtual disks, and configuration settings, at a specific moment in time.

Snapshots are useful for several purposes, including:

• Backing up virtual machines: Snapshots can be used as a backup mechanism for virtual machines, providing a fast and convenient way to recover from a failure or data loss.
• Testing and development: Snapshots can be used to test software updates, patches, or other changes in a safe and isolated environment, without affecting the production environment.
• Rolling back changes: If a problem occurs after making changes to a virtual machine, the snapshot can be used to revert the virtual machine back to its previous state.

Snapshots can be taken quickly and easily, and they typically consume very little disk space. They can also be taken without shutting down the virtual machine, allowing it to continue running while the snapshot is taken. When the snapshot is deleted, all changes made to the virtual machine since the snapshot was taken are lost.