A newly hired administrator is tasked to change the number of CPUs assigned to a VM. Which of the following if the FIRST step the administrator should do during a scheduled maintenance window?

Creating a snapshot captures the VM's current state - including disk, memory, and configuration - before any changes are applied, providing a reliable restore point if the CPU modification causes instability or prevents the VM from booting. This must happen first because subsequent steps like shutting down the guest alter the VM state, and a snapshot taken beforehand ensures the most complete recovery option.

Backing up the host protects hypervisor-level configuration but is not the first step for a guest-level change; a VM snapshot is more targeted, faster, and directly recoverable for this use case.

Shutting down the guest may be required to apply CPU changes on some hypervisors, but the snapshot should be taken while the VM is still in its known-good state before any shutdown or modification occurs.

Shutting down the host is unnecessary and disruptive for a guest CPU change; only the individual VM needs to be powered off, not the entire hypervisor.