Guided Lab: Creating VM Snapshots and Restoring a VM from a Snapshot
Description
Google Compute Engine snapshots let you back up persistent disks by capturing their state at a specific point in time. These snapshots are incremental and stored as global resources, making them efficient and accessible across zones. They are commonly used to protect data, preserve system states before changes, and support recovery scenarios.
In this lab, you’ll create a snapshot of a VM’s disk and use it to restore a new disk and VM. By verifying that the restored VM contains the expected data, you’ll see how snapshots can be used for disaster recovery, system rollback, and cloning VM environments.
Objectives
To ensure the successful completion of this lab, you must have prior experience in creating VM instances and be familiar with their essential components. If you feel that your knowledge in this area is insufficient, we highly recommend taking this lab to gain the necessary understanding:
Objectives
In this lab, you will:
- Create a Compute Engine Linux instance.
- Understand the purpose and capabilities of Google Compute Engine (GCE).
- Manage access and security settings for your instance.
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Creating the VM instance
1. In the Google Cloud Console, use the search bar to navigate to Compute Engine.
2. Start creating a new instance by clicking the Create Instance button at the top of the service page.
3. Configure the VM instance with the following:
- Name: <your-desired-vm-name>
- Region: us-central1
- Machine type: e2-micro
- On the OS and storage section:
- Operating System:Â Ubuntu (you can select any of the Operating systems)
- Version: Ubuntu 25.10 Minimal (or the latest Ubuntu version available)
- Size: 20 GB (can only configure it up to 20 GB only)
- Leave the remaining settings at their default values, then click Create.
Creating the VM snapshot
1. Once the VM is running, open the newly created VM. Navigate to the Storage section, then click the attached boot disk.
2. After clicking the attached boot disk, click Create snapshot.
3. Configure the snapshot with the following:
- Name: <your-desired-snapshot-name>
- Source disk: <your-vm-instance>
- Type: Instant snapshot
- Once done, click Create
4. Confirm that the snapshot was successfully created.
Restoring a Disk from a Snapshot
1. In the Compute Engine dashboard, go to the Disks tab, then select Create disk.
2. Configure the disk with the following:
- Name: restored-disk
- Source type: Instant snapshot
- Source snapshot:
<your-snapshot> - Once done, click Create
3. Once the disk has been created, you will now see two disks. One that is currently used by the VM instance we created, and one that we created just now.
Creating a New VM from the Snapshot
1. Go to the VM instances tab, then click Create instance.
2. Configure the VM instance with the following:
- Name: restored-vm
- Region: us-central1
- Machine type: e2-micro
- In the OS and storage section, click the Change button to change the boot disk. Go to the Existing disks tab, then choose the restored-disk we created earlier.
- Leave the remaining settings at their default values, then click Create,
3. Confirm that the new VM created from the snapshot was successfully created.
Well done! 🎉 You have successfully created a snapshot of a Compute Engine persistent disk and restored a VM from that snapshot. Through this lab, you gained hands-on experience backing up VM data, understanding how snapshots support recovery and rollback, and verifying that data is preserved when creating new instances. These skills are essential for disaster recovery planning, system restoration, and safely managing changes in real-world Google Cloud environments.