sean hawkes (4/25/2012)
Since its been two years since this thread was started, I’m curious to see how things went?We are going through this exact scenario right now and I'm looking for opinions from the community as well. From my research, it seems that there's some reluctance with regards to SQL Server VMs and multi-paths to SANs. With my situation we bought a new SQL Server last fall, big beautiful 4x10 box with 128GB of RAM, love it, right till Microsoft announced their new licensing for sql 2012. Going from a 4 proc. license to a 40 core will suck. Then the thought hit me, I *could* use this as an opportunity to make the jump to virtual and sql 2012. We are re-writing the application from start as we speak, and the risk from the application side is lower. Plus I think I can go from standard to enterprise as well, which were at that tipping point just can never get the funding. So a thought is that I could purchase the minimum 4 core enterprise 2012, build the new application, virtualize, next year migrate the existing application's data onto the new one, and as we need more processing add more cores. I just hate doing soooo much as once, but I also can see that this may be a huge resource savings in the future. The issue that I see is that from the research I can tell with regards
There's some issues with your plan. When you virtualize a SQL Server under the new licensing you can opt for one of two ways of licensing it:
License by VM: Each VM requires minimum of 4-core licenses purchased (based on edition). Yes, this means even if you build a VM with only 2 vCPUs, you still need to buy 4 cores worth of license - Problem here is that I don't know what the specifics are with vMotion capability. I BELIEVE you have to upgrade licenses if you wish to freely vMotion. By upgrades I mean purchase Enterprise Edition with SA, but don't quote me on that. The ONLY person that can tell you exactly what you need are your local Microsoft reps as they'll have all the information on what agreements are in place with your enterprise. This matters a TON in regards to pricing.
Alternative is to purchase Enterprise Edition w/ SA on the physical processors/cores themselves which gives you unlimited virtualization rights. This will have to be done for all cores used on all physical hosts. One workaround you could possibly do to save money (if you have too many cores) is to park them. This basically means you shut off specific cores in the BIOS. Microsoft, I believe, supports this method. Again, check with your local reps for specifics.
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