A technician is tasked by an administrator to patch a virtual machine. The technician needs to ensure that in case of failure, recovery of the virtual machine will be possible. Which of the…

An incremental backup only captures data that changed since the previous backup and does not provide a full point-in-time VM state suitable for rapid rollback.

A snapshot preserves the full VM state - including disk contents, memory, and configuration - immediately before the patch is applied. If the patch fails or destabilizes the system, the technician can revert the VM to its exact pre-patch condition in seconds, making it the standard pre-maintenance safety mechanism in virtualized environments.

Bare metal recovery rebuilds an entire system from scratch and is a lengthy process not intended for quick pre-patch protection in a virtual environment.

Selective recovery restores only specific files or folders and cannot restore the complete running state of a virtual machine needed to undo a failed patch.