Where are the VMWare snapshots stored when backing up virtual machines?

[daduranp]

We are configuring backups for virtual machines using the TSM BA client.

We are having an issue (the client is not excluding some disks when backing up a vm) so we were doing multiple tests but as it resulted in a whole different issue with the snapshots (a locked snapshot) I wonder if anybody knows what is the rule to store the snapshots used during a backup :

1. Each snapshot is stored on the same datastore where the corresponding virtual hard disk is stored?
2. All the snapshots are stored on the datastore where the virtual machine config files are allocated?
3. The snapshot are stored on a datastore depending of the VCenter configuration?

I appreciate your help I checked the guides but did not find specific information.

 

[marclant]

I think most of your questions can be answered here:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/mi...nguage=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1015180

 

[daduranp]

Thank you marclant! And it's funny because before reading your reply I found this one that mentions something similar :

Creating snapshots in a different location than default virtual machine directory for VMware ESX and VMware ESXi (1002929)

It says:

n ESX/ESXi 3.x and 4.x, all files comprising snapshots are created in the virtual machine's working directory. ... In ESXi 5.x, virtual disk redolog (-delta.vmdk) files for snapshots are placed in the same directory as the parent virtual disk (.vmdk) file.

So I guess that answers my question, but it's strange as using ESX 4.0 (but vCenter 5.5) our enviroment created the snapshot on the same directory as the disk, not on the vm's working directory.

Anyways if somebody can confirm if that specifically applies for TSM/VMWare operations, that would be greeeat. (sip)