Snapshots provide a point-in-time copy of a virtual machine, which can be used to revert to a known working state after changes have been made or applications installed in the case of ThinApp for example. Snapshots are also utilized by some popular backup applications as an effective way to back up a virtual machine without installing a backup software within the virtual machine operating system itself.
User initiated snapshots are not a substitute for proper backup and restore procedures and products. Snapshots can be useful before running updates or an application installation as just in case something goes wrong, a quick rollback can be completed.
In order to proceed with this set of steps, we must be logged in to vSphere Web Client with a user account in the administrators group. There must also be a VM in the inventory to perform the snapshot steps against.