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Why9999
Starting Member
10 Posts |
 Posted - 2011-07-13 : 14:54:07
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| Q: Will MS "certify" virtualized Sql Server? Is it enterprise ready and fully supportable, etc.? Sorry, I've never used a virtualized SQL Server and I'm getting asked for a near immediate answer. |
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robvolk
Most Valuable Yak
15732 Posts |
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Why9999
Starting Member
10 Posts |
Posted - 2011-07-13 : 15:08:22
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| I was actually reading one of Brent's articles when you wrote that.It looks pretty clear that they do in general, but I wonder if there are limitations? |
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robvolk
Most Valuable Yak
15732 Posts |
Posted - 2011-07-13 : 15:18:18
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| One of the links in Brent's article talks about cons of virtualization, he talks about some of the problems you might encounter.I know some people are running pretty significant (>1 terabyte) SQL Server instances on VMWare but I don't know details. Hyper-V had some CPU restrictions that VMWare didn't, VMWare is also the more experienced player in the virtualization field. |
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Why9999
Starting Member
10 Posts |
Posted - 2011-07-13 : 15:29:54
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| Yes, I read that article, but it is 2009. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the VM field, that's now an outdated article. Hasn't performance improved substantially since 2009 even? |
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Why9999
Starting Member
10 Posts |
Posted - 2011-07-13 : 15:35:05
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| Also, what I think I'm really getting asked is how MS "certifies" certain hardware/VM configurations? Are their some that are supportable/non-supportable? How do you find out that? |
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Why9999
Starting Member
10 Posts |
Posted - 2011-07-13 : 15:43:39
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| Here's the answer on the last thing: http://virtualisationandmanagement.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/ms-support-policy-for-sql-server-in-a-virtualization-environment/ |
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robvolk
Most Valuable Yak
15732 Posts |
Posted - 2011-07-13 : 15:54:05
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| I would check Brent's site, some of it might be out of date, but not much. You can also ping Brent on Twitter. Performance under virtualization is a lot more sensitive to hardware and VM management configuration, which Brent mentions. Any hypervisor-based VM has very little overhead and therefore little impact on performance, and Hyper-V was the last of those to be released.The Hyper-V limitation was in Win2008R2, as of October 2010, and is likely still in place since I've not heard of a substantial service pack that changes that. Can't say about VMWare, but they are more likely to improve those things (and faster) than Microsoft.Microsoft doesn't certify virtual machine configurations to my knowledge, you may be thinking of the old Hardware Compatibility List for pre-2008 failover clustering. That's no longer a limitation, as long as a configuration passes the cluster validation tests. And if you're not hosting Hyper-V on a cluster, that won't apply at all.update: didn't read the link about SVVP, good to know though. |
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Why9999
Starting Member
10 Posts |
Posted - 2011-07-13 : 16:07:20
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| Well, okay, they don't "certify" it. However, they do have requirements in order for them to support per the above link, right? |
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robvolk
Most Valuable Yak
15732 Posts |
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Virtualization