Creating a snapshot of an OS image

A job with the Snapshot OS Image action copies the active OS image on a device (which may be one or more files) to the OS image library. After the image is in the library, it can be used on future Deploy OS Image actions. If a device's current OS image already exists in the library, the Snapshot OS Image action is skipped for that device.

When a group or realm is selected as the network span, you have the option to run the Snapshot OS Image action in serial or parallel. If the selected devices only have a few different OS image versions, run the Snapshot OS Image action in serial for best performance. Otherwise, TrueSight Network Automation copies the same image multiple times from each device to Network Automation. If the selected devices have several different OS image versions, run the Snapshot OS Image action in parallel for best performance.

The best performance is achieved when each device in the group has a different OS image version. You might want to create a static group of devices that represent the different OS image versions running in the network and run the action in parallel. This approach stores all production images into the OS Image Library in one request.

For more information about job creation, see Creating-a-job.

To run a Snapshot OS Image action

1. On the Add Job page, select Add Action > Span Actions > Snapshot OS Image.

2. Enter information in the following fields:

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3. Select any of the following options:
   
   

   Option	Description
   Run in Parallel	For improved efficiency, Network Automation can execute the Snapshot OS Image action for multiple devices in the network span concurrently. By default, Network Automation runs up to 20 span actions concurrently. Contact your system administrator if you want to change this default.
   Use Auxiliary Interface	When the selected network span is a device, this option selects the auxiliary interface for connecting to the device. When this option is not selected or when the span is not a device, the primary interface is used.
   Use Remote Image File Server	This option appears if remote file servers are defined. Choose this option to copy the image files to the remote file server associated with each device (instead of copying the files into the system's local database). You must also choose a value for Remote File Transfer Mode to specify how the files are to be copied from the device to the remote image file servers. The remote image file servers must be running the appropriate file transfer service.

4. Click Save to add the action to the job.