Manage Application Snapshots

Updated

Introduction

Application snapshots help you protect your edge applications by capturing their complete state at specific points in time. You'll typically need to manage snapshots when updating applications, recovering from errors, or cleaning up storage space. This article explains how to create snapshots during updates, restore your application from a snapshot when issues occur, and delete snapshots when they're no longer needed.

Prerequisites

Before managing application snapshots:

Create a Snapshot

You can create snapshots during the Purge & Update process. Or see Create a Snapshot instead if you’re trying to take a snapshot when air-gapped or offline for long periods of time.

  1. Click Edge App Instances in the left panel.
  2. Select your edge application instance from the list.
  3. Click the ellipsis (...) at the top-right corner of the page.
  4. Select Purge & Update. A confirmation dialog will appear.
  5. Check the Create a snapshot on purge & update checkbox.
  6. Click Purge & Update to confirm.
  7. Monitor the snapshot creation process. This process will take a few minutes because the application instance needs to restart. Your application will stop briefly while ZEDEDA Cloud captures the configuration and volume data, applies the update, then restarts the application

Note: If you make changes to an application image's configuration in the Application Marketplace, an "Update Available" prompt will appear in the associated application instance pages. This prompt gives you the option to initiate a Purge and Update process. You can also create a snapshot when you trigger Purge and Update through this prompt.

View and Verify Snapshots

You can view your application instance's snapshots in the Storage page.

  1. Click Edge App Instances in the left panel.
  2. Select your edge application instance from the list.
  3. Click the Storage tab.
  4. Scroll down to the App Instance Volume Snapshots section to see the list of available snapshots.

The snapshot list displays the snapshot identifier, creation timestamp, configuration version, and current status for each snapshot.

If you see errors, check that your edge node has sufficient storage space (at least 20% free) and review application logs for detailed error messages.

Rollback to a Snapshot

Rolling back to a snapshot reverts your application to a previously saved state, including both configuration and volume data. Use this when an update causes issues or you need to recover from configuration errors.

Important:

  • Before rolling back, back up any data created since the snapshot was taken. Rollback replaces current data with the snapshot's data, and you'll lose any changes made after the snapshot.
  • Each snapshot can only be used for a rollback operation one time. After you roll back to a snapshot, you cannot use that same snapshot again for another rollback.
  1. Click Edge App Instances in the left panel.
  2. Select your edge application instance.
  3. Click the Storage tab.
  4. Scroll down to the App Instance Volume Snapshots section.
  5. Identify the snapshot you want to roll back to. Review the creation timestamp and configuration version to ensure you select the correct snapshot.
  6. Click the back arrow icon in the Action column. A confirmation dialog will appear.
  7. Review the warning message and click Rollback to confirm.
  8. Monitor the rollback status in the snapshot's Status column. ZEDEDA Cloud stops your application, restores volume data from the snapshot, reapplies the previous configuration, and restarts the application. Typical rollback time depends on the size of the application volume.

Verify the rollback

After the rollback completes:

  1. Check the snapshot's Status column. After a successful rollback, it will read "Activated" and the rollback button will become inactive.
  2. Verify your application status shows "Running".
  3. Confirm the application version matches the snapshot's configuration version.
  4. Test critical functionality to ensure the application is working as expected.

Troubleshooting rollback issues

Rollback fails with "resource not available": Hardware resources required by the snapshot (such as network interfaces or USB devices) are no longer available on the edge node. Check if resources have been removed or reassigned, free up required resources, or contact support if resources are permanently unavailable.

Application won't start after rollback: Review application logs for specific errors, verify the edge node has sufficient resources, check that network configurations are still valid, and ensure no conflicting applications are using the same resources.

Rollback takes longer than expected: Large applications (volumes over 200GB) might take several minutes. Monitor storage performance on your edge node and check edge node logs for storage-related issues.

Delete a Snapshot

Deleting a snapshot removes the saved state from your edge node and frees up storage space. Delete snapshots when you're confident the current application instance is stable and no longer need rollback capability.

Warning: Deleting a snapshot is permanent. Once deleted, you cannot roll back your application instance to that saved state. Ensure your current application instance is working correctly before deleting snapshots.

  1. Click Edge App Instances in the left panel.
  2. Select your edge application instance.
  3. Click the Storage tab.
  4. Scroll down to the App Instance Volume Snapshots section.
  5. Identify the snapshot you want to delete. Review the creation timestamp and configuration version to confirm this is the correct snapshot.
  6. Click the trash bin icon in the Action column.
  7. Confirm the deletion when prompted.
  8. Optional: If you want to immediately delete all snapshot-related files from your edge node's drives and free up storage space right away, restart the application instance. Otherwise, files will be deleted automatically during the next application deactivation.

Understand deletion behavior

ZEDEDA Cloud removes the snapshot from its records immediately, and your snapshot disappears from the management interface. However, the actual deletion of snapshot files from your edge node's drives happens asynchronously during the next application deactivation (update, restart, or purge operation).

Storage space becomes available when your application next stops or restarts. If you need to recover storage immediately, restart the application instance to force the cleanup process.

Verify storage recovery

To verify storage has been freed:

  1. Click Edge Nodes in the left panel.
  2. Select your edge node.
  3. Click the Storage tab.
  4. Check the available storage on the persist partition.
  5. Confirm storage has increased after the application's next deactivation.

Expected storage recovery varies based on volume type:

  • Non-purgeable volumes: Typically 10-50% of volume size, depending on changes since snapshot
  • Purgeable volumes: Up to 100% of the volume size

Next Steps

After managing your application snapshots:

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