Enhancing Snapshot Revert Process for Unmanaged VMs in Aria Automation

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Objective

In many enterprise environments, tenants occasionally request the ability to revert snapshots on unmanaged virtual machines (VMs) — particularly in development or testing scenarios.

This blog outlines a new, controlled and automated process that enables snapshot reverts using VMware Aria Automation (vRA) and Aria Automation Orchestrator (vRO). A dedicated catalog item is introduced, scoped specifically for the requesting tenant, ensuring no disruption to existing services.


Key Benefits

1️⃣ Automation & Efficiency

  • Enables self-service snapshot revert functionality.

  • Reduces manual effort and eliminates human error.

  • Ensures consistent and auditable rollback across environments.

2️⃣ No Impact to Existing Tenants

  • The implementation is fully isolated to the requesting tenant.

  • No disruption or changes to current tenant services or catalog items.

  • Runs independently within its own project scope.

3️⃣ Targeted Access Control

  • The catalog item is visible only to users in the specified Tenant project.

  • Enforces role-based access control in Aria Automation.

  • Keeps snapshot revert capabilities secure and contained.

High-Level Architecture & Flow

Below is a high-level flowchart that outlines how the snapshot revert request is processed end to end.





3. Screenshots – vRO Workflow Design

Include screenshots of:

  • Workflow schema in vRO




  • Scriptable task for snapshot revert

The snapshot is now active and visible in vCenter.


A snapshot request was successfully initiated and completed through vRealize Automation (vRA).



A revert snapshot request was subsequently triggered from vRA. 




The VM was successfully reverted to the snapshot state in vCenter, completing the process without issues.





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