Environment snapshot overview

Edit online

Review these topics to learn about environment snapshots and understand how to use them.

Environment snapshot use cases

The following examples describe some common use cases for environment snapshots:

  • Snapshot an environment to make changes to the environment configuration or perform testing of new tools or scripts.
  • Store a snapshot of an environment as an temporary backup or as part of an official archive.
  • Snapshot an environment to capture a point-in-time environment configuration that corresponds with a milestone, such as an external or internal release.

Environment snapshot concepts and terms

In the UI, snapshots introduce some new concepts and terms for working with environments.

Environment snapshot: A snapshot is a new instance of an existing environment. Some key points to remember about snapshots are as follows:
  • A snapshot is a separate environment object. Making a change to one snapshot in a snapshot set does not affect the other snapshots in the set.
  • A snapshot is not a copy.

    If you snapshot an object associated with an environment, snapshot creates a separate instance of the object. Copy maps relationships between objects; it does not create new objects.

  • A snapshot is not a revision of an environment:
    • Snapshot does not support comparing changes between two environment snapshots.
    • Changes to environment snapshots are not tracked or identified with a version number as in a source control system. However, you can correlate environment snapshots to milestones by using a snapshot naming scheme that includes version numbers, for example, 7.5.0, 3.4.01.

Snapshot set: A snapshot set is the set of all the environment snapshots that are descendants of one base snapshot. At a minimum, the set includes the base or parent snapshot and a child snapshot. In the UI, the Snapshot icon Snapshot icon beside the environment name indicates that a snapshot set for the environment exists.

Base snapshot: Initially, all environments have a snapshot name of Base Snapshot. You can change Base Snapshot to another name. The base snapshot is the parent of the snapshot set.

Default environment snapshot: The default environment snapshot is the current, working environment. Only one snapshot in the set can be the default. If you do not specify a default snapshot, the base snapshot is the default.
  • In the UI, the default snapshot is displayed at the top-level of the environments list. Select Environments to display the environments list.
  • When you select an environment with snapshots, the default environment snapshot is used unless you select a different environment snapshot in the list box.
  • To access and work with other snapshots in the environment snapshot set, you must click the Snapshot icon Snapshot icon.

Environment snapshot views

Select the Snapshot icon Snapshot icon to display the Snapshot view. In the UI, the Snapshot view shows the hierarchy of the snapshots in a set:
  • The base snapshot is at the top level and has the name Base Snapshot, if you do not assign it a unique name.
  • All environment snapshots are children of a base snapshot. Children of the same base snapshot are indented at the same level in the Snapshot column.
  • Environment snapshots that are created from a child snapshot become children of the child snapshot and are indented at the next level in the Snapshot column.