A logical point-in-time image of another , called a , in the . A snapshot is the logical equivalent of a complete physical copy, but you create it much more quickly than a physical copy and it requires less disk space.
Because a snapshot is a -addressable virtual disk, you can perform backups using the snapshot while the source virtual disk remains online and user-accessible. In addition, you can write to the snapshot virtual disk to perform application testing or scenario development and analysis.