In the IT world we are constantly faced with challenges to ensure server availability and security. A few obstacles we face daily are threats from natural disasters, ransomware, patches, bad software and much more. The list of issues that we encounter outweighs the solutions that are available.
With that in mind we are constantly looking for the best solutions for our customers. Leveraging the use of Google Snapshots, the process of resuming normal operations following an outage is reduced to about 30 minutes. Regaining access to data, hardware, software is vastly improved with the use of snapshots.
Our process involves only removing the disk and eliminates the need to have to restore the entire VM from scratch.
Step 1: Turn off the VM using the GCP console.
Step 2: Copy the name of the disk mounted to the VM you will be restoring.
Make sure you selected the Boot disk
Step 3: Remove the disk from the VM.
Edit the VM and delete the disk. Save the change.
Step 4: Go to Disks and delete the disk that was attached to the VM
Step 5: Select CREATE DISK
Name: Enter or paste the name of the disk we deleted in Step 4. Select the same Region, zone can be different from the old disk.
Disk source type: Snapshot
Source snapshot: Select a working snapshot that you have saved.
Create: Select to create our new disk
Step 6: Attach the new replacement disk to the existing VM.
Edit the VM and select Add Item under Boot Disk
Select the new disk we created using the same disk name.
Step 7: Save the change.
Step 8: Start the VM.
The instance should now be restored from our snapshot. Log in to the server to verify and confirm working access.