Introduction to Virtual Machine Checkpoints
Windows Server for Qlik Sense Admins
Overview
Before we proceed to making server changes, let’s learn how to use checkpoints to rollback or undo any issues that we may face during server configuration.
Checkpoints serve as an incredibly convenient safety net. Checkpoints are fantastic option to have in your repertoire of tools for times when you’re upgrading Qlik Sense, installing Windows Updates, running some tests on your server, or when doing routine server maintenance. A checkpoint provides a convenient and quick way to recover from issues that may come up as you’re working or experimenting with your server. I LOVE checkpoints and use them often.
In this and in the next couple of guides, I will show you how to create a checkpoint for a virtual machine in Hyper-V Manager and how to use the checkpoints to roll back a server change to a stable state if/when something goes wrong.
Let's dive in and get a better understanding of what VM checkpoints are and how useful they can be in server administration.
2
POINTS
1
TAKEAWAY
LOW
COMPLEXITY
01. What are Checkpoints?
Checkpoints are used to create a snapshot of your server that you can use as a restore point if/when something goes wrong. They’re kind of like a sophisticated undo button.
When you create a checkpoint on a virtual machine, you essentially make a copy of your entire server - all of its configurations, all software that’s installed on it, every single file, etc. If you create a checkpoint on your server when it is on and running, you will even capture the applications that are running at the time when checkpoint is created.
Here’s an example of the checkpoints I’ve created on one of my Qlik Sense servers:
I just finished upgrading my Qlik Sense server to November 2024, patch 4 version. Once I confirmed that November 2024 version of Qlik Sense works well, I created a checkpoint before I proceeded to do additional server maintenance:
The idea is that if something were to go wrong during the upgrade of PostgreSQL, I would simply apply the checkpoint named Upgraded to Nov 2024 Patch 04 to rollback my server to functioning state with older version of PostgreSQL. Easy as that. Checkpoints are magic.
02. Checkpoints in Domain Development
As far as this course goes, we're about to start adding roles to the first server we installed. Things can go wrong or you may change your mind about how you want to configure your server. Whatever the reason may be, it's nice to have a simple and quick way to undo any changes we'll be making to a server. That's where checkpoints will come to play in this course.
More specifically, we will create a checkpoint before we add Active Directory Domain Services and DNS roles to the domain controller. Then we will go through the process of adding and configuring the roles. If you'll run into trouble configuring the new roles, I will show you how you can use previously created checkpoints to go back to the point in time when your server was working fine, before the new roles were added. That's the main idea here.
Guide
Summary
All Set!
Key takeaway is to use checkpoints as a temporary safety net to provide a quick undo and a rollback option whenever you’re testing things, making server changes, or running upgrades.
With that said, let’s see how to:
Create a checkpoint.
Restore the server to a given checkpoint.
And cleanup checkpoints when you’re done working on or experimenting with your server and are ready to resume regular server operations.
In the next lesson we'll go over the steps to create a checkpoint. I'll see you there!
References
Up Next
Create a Checkpoint
Copyright © 2023 howdash LLC