Maintenance Policy and Schedule
Per VMware and Security best practices, the Virtual Infrastructure team will perform regular updates to the infrastructure on a quarterly basis. Updates will be applied during the months of September, December, March, and June. Security patches will always have priority and may not follow the established patching cycle depending on their severity. These updates are for the underlying virtual infrastructure and do not impact Virtual machines.
Snapshot Policy
OIT supports the ability to perform snapshots of Virtual Machines in the OIT Private Cloud. We will support snapshots for 7 days. After that, they can be deleted at any time.
- VMware’s best practices for snapshots recommends keeping snapshots for no longer than 72 hours.
- If the snapshot is over 72 hours and creating resource issues OIT reserves the right to delete it - including as a first step in troubleshooting performance issues on the VM (if the issues correlate with snapshot creation)
- As a general rule: Snapshots are not backups.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a snapshot?
Snapshots are used to preserve the state of a VM at a specific point in time
When should I use snapshots?
Prior to performing upgrades or patching of an application running within that VM or other work that you may need or want to roll back.
Will I receive notifications before snapshot removal?
No. Snapshot removal is automated and not configured to send notifications.
What will OIT do if a snapshot can’t be deleted?
OIT will coordinate a maintenance period where your VM may need to be shut down for successful snapshot deletion.
What will OIT do if a snapshot can’t be deleted?
OIT will coordinate a maintenance period where your VM may need to be shut down for successful snapshot deletion.
What if I need a snapshot for longer than 72 hours?
Snapshots are not intended to be used as backups. OIT backs up VMs nightly and retains daily backups for 30 days unless the customer has opted-out of backups.
Are my snapshots included in the nightly backups?
Yes, VMs are backed up as-is but restoring a VM with snapshots that violate the snapshot policy would result in the immediate removal of those outdated snapshots.
Can I opt out of this policy?
No. As long as you have not opted out of OIT backups on your VM, you can open a ServiceNow support ticket by emailing oithelp@colorado.edu a restore.
