The ability to "offline" a client for maintenance allows for a timed outage and restoration of service automatically without having to alter any policy or client lists. The offline status is recognized for standard, Windows, database, and VMware snapshot policies, but it is ignored by VIP snapshot policies.
If a VIP policy starts a snapshot of a client while the VM environment is in maintenance it is possible to seriously compromise the entire VM environment (for instance, if a datastore is low on storage and VMs are being moved, the creation of delta files by backups may lock up the storage complex).
Therefore the implementation of an offline status must be added to VIP policies as soon as possible.