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Date:      Mon, 16 Feb 2015 11:38:48 -0800
From:      Jordan Hubbard <jkh@ixsystems.com>
To:        Charles Sprickman <spork@bway.net>
Cc:        freebsd-fs@freebsd.org, Matthew Seaman <matthew@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: About Filesystem freeze/thaw in freebsd
Message-ID:  <70C2BC1A-3233-4631-A53D-F55FCDF3827F@ixsystems.com>
In-Reply-To: <16F552EF-83A2-496B-A7ED-7B62B78D666B@bway.net>
References:  <COL128-W74C2CE6B8243E74B26A286F62E0@phx.gbl> <54E1B90E.8050101@freebsd.org> <20150216095410.GH34251@kib.kiev.ua> <16F552EF-83A2-496B-A7ED-7B62B78D666B@bway.net>

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> On Feb 16, 2015, at 8:47 AM, Charles Sprickman <spork@bway.net> wrote:
>=20
> Do the VMWare tools currently implement this?
>=20
> VMWare doesnt complain when making snapshots, but I never found a
> way to verify its actually working.

You can=E2=80=99t do it that way with VMWare, at least not without some =
extra moving parts, since VMWare=E2=80=99s notion of snapshots and the =
host=E2=80=99s notion (UFS or ZFS, it matters not) are entirely =
disparate.  VMWare has some APIs that the host can optionally support =
(FreeBSD does not) to coordinate snapshots but other than that, again, =
no joy.

FreeNAS provides a =E2=80=9Ccoordinated snapshot=E2=80=9D mechanism with =
VMWare that basically calls out to VMWare (using its REST API) to =
snapshot all of the VMs on a given dataset, then takes a ZFS snapshot =
which encapsulates those VMWare snapshots, and destroys the VMWare =
snapshots afterwards (since they=E2=80=99re no longer useful).  It=E2=80=99=
s a little ghetto, but a whole lot better than purely uncoordinated =
snapshots where you have no idea if the VM is in a stable (known) state =
when you take the ZFS snapshot.

> How about Xen and popular Xen variations like Amazon and Digital =
Ocean?

Even less well understood / supported.

- Jordan




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