I would like to be able to capture the state of four VM's, store them and later restore them if I need to.  I know checkpoints could be used but like always the checkpoints get bigger with time.  I'm thinking creating templates from them and putting them in the library is the way to go, but am open to any other ideas that people might have.

It is four VM's, one has a Dynamics AX AOS on it, the other is a SharePoint front end, the other a SQL database sever and the last is a SQL SSRS server.

Hi Sir,

>>I'm thinking creating templates from them and putting them in the library is the way to go

If you mean "creating VM template" , please note that Creating VM template will damage that VM (it contains the procedure "sysprep" ), it can't cover your needs .

As far as I know  snapshot is a good solution to roll back the VM to previous state .

But  , we may need to take "application consistant " into account .

In my opinion  , you can shutdown the VMs then copy the VM's files to another place to achieve that .

In addition backup might also be helpful ,  sharepoint and SQL backup please refer to following article :

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Gg266384.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Best Regards,

Elton Ji

Sorry for the delayed response. In the end I didn't make a template based on the point that you made about the VM having sysprep run against it. It would have made it difficult for me to complete the things that I was hoping to do. Making a copy of the disks was the best way to go for this instance.