Technical Tip: Taking a Snapshot of a FortiGate VM Hosted on Azure

[Hassan97wsh]

Description	This article describes how to take a snapshot of a FortiGate VM hosted on Azure.
Scope	FortiGate VM hosted on Azure public cloud.
Solution	Taking a snapshot of the FortiGate VM is possible by taking a snapshot of the OS disk attached to that VM. Snapshots of the OS disk can then be used to generate backup disks.   A snapshot of the OS disk can be created by navigating to the Disk settings of the FortiGate VM and finding the OS disk. By selecting '+ Create snapshot' and filling in the information, a new snapshot of the disk is created.   To restore the FortiGate state saved in the snapshot, the backup disk must be generated. This can be done by navigating to the newly created snapshot (in this example, the snapshot is named 'FGT-PAYG-01-SNAP'), selecting '+ Create disk', and filling in the information. The new disk must be in the same availability zone as the FortiGate VM.   The new backup disk can be applied to the FortiGate VM by clicking on 'Swap OS disk' and selecting the backup disk (In this example, the backup disk is named 'FGT-PAYG-01-BACKUP'). The VM must be shut down before swapping the OS disk. Additional Considerations: FortiGate VMs require continuous or periodic connectivity to FortiGuard servers to validate and maintain their license. If a snapshot of the FortiGate VM is taken and restored after a long period, reactivating the license may be necessary. Note: On FortiGate, only the config backup option is available. No snapshot. The snapshot option is only from the Azure platform. Related document: Create a snapshot of a virtual hard disk