Thanks for your comments .The third party tool we are currently using is snap manager for sql server (IBM snap manager on a NetApp appliance) .What i am attempting to do is use log shipping from multi instance failover cluster on sql 2008 R2 server to a duplicate DR server but would like to pause the log shipping and once paused take snaps of the large DBs during upgrades etc. discard the snap shots on successful upgrade and continue with the log shipping if at all possible.

The issue i have here is that i need to be able to delete all trace in sql server that these snap shots ever took place so that when i start the log shipping again it is unaware anything untoward has taken place and technically i not sure that this is even possible .

To break the issue down even further i would like to use log shipping, native backups and snap manager together .