What is a snapshot in Google Compute Engine?

A snapshot in Google Compute Engine represents a specific state of a virtual machine (VM) instance's persistent disk at a given point in time. This allows users to create backups of their data, enabling them to restore the disk to that state in the future if needed. Snapshots are incremental, meaning that after the initial snapshot is taken, only the changes made since the last snapshot are saved, which optimizes storage usage and speeds up the process.

Taking snapshots is vital for disaster recovery and data management strategies, as it helps maintain data integrity and provides a straightforward way to revert to previous configurations or recover from data loss. This feature is especially useful for applications where data changes frequently, allowing for flexibility and security in data handling.

In the context of the other options, while a restore point for recovering deleted files is a common feature in data management, it is not an accurate description of how snapshots function in Google Compute Engine. Snapshots do not represent the entire operating system as images do, and they are not a temporary storage solution but rather a powerful tool for data backup and recovery.