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Snapshot management for Azure VMs

It's a Snap

Article from ADMIN 88/2025

By Thomas Joos

Microsoft recommends the use of snapshots both locally and for Azure VMs. We describe how to create snapshots in the Azure GUI and with PowerShell and how to protect your snapshots against unauthorized access.

Snapshots are a key tool in virtual machine (VM) management. They offer a quick and easy way to back up the status of a VM at a specific point in time – without having to shut down machines or interrupt production operations. This option is particularly useful in cases of misconfiguration, data loss, or system failure and is useful in development and test environments that require fast clones.

Snapshot Benefits

One key advantage of snapshots is a flexible basis for backup and recovery strategies. Organizations can use them to create a backup quickly without affecting the original state of the VM. Additionally, snapshots enable very efficient management of large infrastructures with the use of sophisticated storage mechanisms that only save the changes since the last snapshot, saving storage space and money.

In Azure, snapshots also have the option of creating a new disk from an existing snapshot of a virtual disk. In turn, the disk can form the basis for a new virtual machine. By creating a new virtual disk from a snapshot, you can create an exact copy of the original state of the VM without disrupting the operation of the active VM.

Snapshots are also an efficient choice if you need to deploy new virtual machines. Instead of reconfiguring a new VM from scratch, you simply take a snapshot and create an identical copy of the original environment, saving time and resources. This method also helps you maintain a consistent and standardized environment, because the newly created VMs have the same configuration as the original machine.

Snapshots offer another advantage in terms of integration with Azure Automation and Azure Backup, which support automated management and the regular creation of snapshots. You can also configure access controls for snapshots to ensure that only authorized users have access.

Deploying templates for the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) means that

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