vm disk consolidation is needed

This basically happens in vSphere 5.x, you are now informed when a virtual machine snapshot consolidation fails. This pops up a warning on the summary tab telling that you will have to manually consolidate the snapshots using the vSphere client rather than command line which was the case in the previous versions.

To confirm if the consolidation is actually needed, select your VM in the VIrtual machines tab on the Host and then right click the Menu option, you will find a column that says "Needs Consolidation ". Check that and then come back to Virtual machines View. This new column will show if the machine actually needs snapshot consolidation. If its needed you will see a "YES" next to the VM. After the successful consolidation is complete this should become "NO". Refer the below screenshot for the same.


Yes it is safe to run the consolidation from the vSphere client. There is a detailed KB Article that talks about the same warning. Refer to it and follow the steps.
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2003638

Yes if its showing on a particular disk that its required its always suggested to check and do time to time consolidation of disk. But If the consolidation process is stopped before completing, it may result in data corruption so please shut down machine before doing this. consolidation will just merge snapshot files with unappropriate snapshot details with other snapshots or parent disk.

Right now, they are running on 0002@.vmdk
Will it remove all 000*.vmdk when i consolidate or do I have to remove manually?
Is it ok to wait and remove in week time?

It will remove all *000.vmdk disks. It will consolidate all the snapshots. Literally what it means.
Yes you can do it in a week.

Hey Abhilash,
Would it it create more and and 000*.vmdk files when the backup kick into everyday ?