In VMware, how do you get snapshot to work, without disconnecting database users?

Hi,

Hope someone can help me with an issue we are having with our SQL Server running on VMware.

We have a server box, which is running VMware Workstation 14. The operating system is Windows server 2016, and the virtual server also has SQL Server 2017 running on it.

We have used VMware for another server in the past and not had any problems with doing snapshots, however when we scheduled snapshots to run every hour, anyone connected to the SQL Server and its databases, were presented with the attached error message on the screens.

From the research I've done so far, I believe that the snapshot function is disconnecting all the existing SQL Server connections and preventing any new connections during the time that the snapshot is running.

Can someone please explain if it is possible to have snapshot function in VMware along with the SQL Server, so that when staff are entering records into the database, snapshot can still run an hourly backup to keep things up-to-date.

Regards

GW