Creating a snapshot

There are lots of reasons why you might want to create a snapshot, and like many other processes, PowerCLI really shines when you need to create more than one at the same time. Creating a snapshot is an easy process from a native cmdlet. What is even better is that the cmdlet can accept piped input of virtual machines that allows you to quickly create snapshots for groups of servers. Many times, when deploying updates or patches to software, you need to create snapshots on multiple servers running the same application. PowerCLI is perfect for the job.

There are two types of snapshots. You can take snapshots that include the memory to return the VM to a running state, including the memory at the time that it is taken. This type of snapshot allows a VM to be brought back to a running state with an active application. There are also snapshots that simply snap the disk, but these would make a crash-consistent version of the virtual machine since the running application might...