Mailing List Archive

Memory only snapshot
Hi,

This may be a stupid request and potentially covered at some point - I did
find a wiki entry relating to the broad concept here
<http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Proposal:_Disk_import/export>.

Basically I want to be able to selectively snapshot different aspects of a
VM. We have a lot of machines running off a small OS disk, with larger data
disks. I want to be able to do a snapshot of the OS disk selectively, which
I can do with the API and the exposing mechanism from the wiki. This is
because the data on the larger disks is usually part of a separate backup
process and can be recovered with different methods - also most of the SR's
that we run these VMs on are not really large enough to be able to snapshot
all of the disks. However, if I do it this way it means that I also open
myself up to having potentially unrestorable machine images.

What I am wondering is if there is a way of performing a memory only
snapshot? My strategy would be that I pause a vm, snapshot the OS disk,
then dump the memory somehow, unpause the VM and then sync the snapshots to
a backup unit. Given that I can perform a disk and memory snapshot, I
wouldn't have thought this would be too out of the question?

Please feel free to point out that what I'm asking for is completely stupid
- I freely admit I haven't done a giant amount of research on this point.

Thanks
Jon
Memory only snapshot [ In reply to ]
Hi,

This may be a stupid request and potentially covered at some point - I did
find a wiki entry relating to the broad concept here
<http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Proposal:_Disk_import/export>.

Basically I want to be able to selectively snapshot different aspects of a
VM. We have a lot of machines running off a small OS disk, with larger data
disks. I want to be able to do a snapshot of the OS disk selectively, which
I can do with the API and the exposing mechanism from the wiki. This is
because the data on the larger disks is usually part of a separate backup
process and can be recovered with different methods - also most of the SR's
that we run these VMs on are not really large enough to be able to snapshot
all of the disks. However, if I do it this way it means that I also open
myself up to having potentially unrestorable machine images.

What I am wondering is if there is a way of performing a memory only
snapshot? My strategy would be that I pause a vm, snapshot the OS disk,
then dump the memory somehow, unpause the VM and then sync the snapshots to
a backup unit. Given that I can perform a disk and memory snapshot, I
wouldn't have thought this would be too out of the question?

Please feel free to point out that what I'm asking for is completely stupid
- I freely admit I haven't done a giant amount of research on this point.

Thanks
Jon
Re: Memory only snapshot [ In reply to ]
Apologies for double post

On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Mailing Lists <list@dorkington-hackers.com
> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> This may be a stupid request and potentially covered at some point - I did
> find a wiki entry relating to the broad concept here
> <http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Proposal:_Disk_import/export>.
>
> Basically I want to be able to selectively snapshot different aspects of a
> VM. We have a lot of machines running off a small OS disk, with larger data
> disks. I want to be able to do a snapshot of the OS disk selectively, which
> I can do with the API and the exposing mechanism from the wiki. This is
> because the data on the larger disks is usually part of a separate backup
> process and can be recovered with different methods - also most of the SR's
> that we run these VMs on are not really large enough to be able to snapshot
> all of the disks. However, if I do it this way it means that I also open
> myself up to having potentially unrestorable machine images.
>
> What I am wondering is if there is a way of performing a memory only
> snapshot? My strategy would be that I pause a vm, snapshot the OS disk,
> then dump the memory somehow, unpause the VM and then sync the snapshots to
> a backup unit. Given that I can perform a disk and memory snapshot, I
> wouldn't have thought this would be too out of the question?
>
> Please feel free to point out that what I'm asking for is completely
> stupid - I freely admit I haven't done a giant amount of research on this
> point.
>
> Thanks
> Jon
>
>
Re: Memory only snapshot [ In reply to ]
Hi,

Is this maybe posted in the wrong list? A simple no would be enough for me
to start considering other alternatives.

Thanks in advance
Jon

On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Mailing Lists <list@dorkington-hackers.com
> wrote:

> Apologies for double post
>
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Mailing Lists <
> list@dorkington-hackers.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> This may be a stupid request and potentially covered at some point - I
>> did find a wiki entry relating to the broad concept here
>> <http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Proposal:_Disk_import/export>.
>>
>> Basically I want to be able to selectively snapshot different aspects of
>> a VM. We have a lot of machines running off a small OS disk, with larger
>> data disks. I want to be able to do a snapshot of the OS disk selectively,
>> which I can do with the API and the exposing mechanism from the wiki. This
>> is because the data on the larger disks is usually part of a separate
>> backup process and can be recovered with different methods - also most of
>> the SR's that we run these VMs on are not really large enough to be able to
>> snapshot all of the disks. However, if I do it this way it means that I
>> also open myself up to having potentially unrestorable machine images.
>>
>> What I am wondering is if there is a way of performing a memory only
>> snapshot? My strategy would be that I pause a vm, snapshot the OS disk,
>> then dump the memory somehow, unpause the VM and then sync the snapshots to
>> a backup unit. Given that I can perform a disk and memory snapshot, I
>> wouldn't have thought this would be too out of the question?
>>
>> Please feel free to point out that what I'm asking for is completely
>> stupid - I freely admit I haven't done a giant amount of research on this
>> point.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Jon
>>
>>
>