VM Snapshot Management
Unmanaged VM snapshots are a ticking time bomb — they accumulate silently, inflate storage costs, and nobody knows which ones are safe to delete. We implement automated snapshot management with proper scheduling, retention, and lifecycle policies.
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Automated Snapshot Scheduling
We configure automated snapshots using AWS Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM), GCP scheduled snapshots, or custom Lambda functions for complex requirements. Schedules are tag-based — tag a volume with backup:daily and it gets daily snapshots automatically. Critical database volumes get hourly snapshots; application servers get daily. Schedules are defined in Terraform and applied consistently across all environments.
Retention and Cleanup
Every snapshot schedule has a retention policy: keep 24 hourly, 7 daily, 4 weekly, and 12 monthly snapshots. DLM handles retention automatically — oldest snapshots are deleted when limits are exceeded. For manual snapshots, we deploy a cleanup Lambda that identifies and deletes orphaned snapshots older than a threshold. We tag all snapshots with creation date, source volume, and purpose for auditability.
Cross-Region and Cross-Account Copies
For DR, we configure automatic cross-region snapshot copies. DLM policies copy snapshots to a secondary region with independent retention settings. Cross-account copies provide additional isolation — snapshots are shared with a backup account that has restricted access. Encryption keys are replicated to the target region using AWS KMS multi-region keys. Every copy is tagged with source metadata for traceability.
Cost Monitoring and Optimization
Snapshots are incremental, but costs add up. We implement cost monitoring with CloudWatch metrics and Cost Explorer reports broken down by snapshot age and source. Alerts fire when snapshot costs exceed thresholds. We identify and clean up: orphaned snapshots from terminated instances, snapshots older than retention policy, and duplicate snapshots from overlapping schedules. Typical savings: 30-60% reduction in snapshot storage costs.
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