Is SQL2005 supported on VMware

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Is SQL2005 supported on VMware

Laura-205946

SSChasing Mays

Points: 636
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February 28, 2007 at 6:28 pm

#117762

is sql2005 supported on vmware....i need proof that it would not be supported on a production system

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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MarkusB SSC-Dedicated Points: 37370 More actions · Answer 1

As far as I know, Microsoft doesn't support either windows nor SQL server on VMware only MS Virtual Server.

At least about a year ago that's what they told us. But during a project I worked on, the hardware supplier (HP) took over the support of all MS Applicatioins running on the VMware platform. You must decide if that's good enough for your situation.

Anyway on any virtual server environment you really need to watch your IO throughput. In my experience it's ok for smaller databases <100Gb and development servers. Large databases or databases with a lot of IO activity I wouldn't run on a virtual server.

You might consider MS Virtual Server, since with the introduction of SP2 you can run unlimited SQL Servers on one host under one license. http://weblog.infoworld.com/virtualization/archives/2007/02/virtualization_23.html

Hope this helps

Markus

[font="Verdana"]Markus Bohse[/font]

bledu SSChampion Points: 12335 More actions · Answer 2

and remember not to run foul of MS licensing schemes. 🙂

Everything you can imagine is real.

Balmukund SSCertifiable Points: 6648 More actions · Answer 3

I am with MarkusB

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897615/en-us

James Moore (Red Gate) SSCrazy Points: 2644 More actions · Answer 4

I dont think its offically support as Balmukund and MarkusB pointed out but I have certainly had it running in a VMWare instance before (both x86 and x64 guests) with no problems at all. In my experiance performance isnt always great though (not that its much better on a VirtualPC)..

- James

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James Moore
Red Gate Software Ltd

Rick Heiges SSChasing Mays Points: 660 More actions · Answer 5

MSFT will make an effort to supprt SQL Server on VMWare, but they will eventually ask you to move to "bare metal" if no progress is being made on the resolution. I recently made a blog entry on http://www.sqlblog.com about SQL Server on VMWare. You can find that post here.

Linda Johanning SSCertifiable Points: 6727 More actions · Answer 6

I have SQL 2000 and 2005 running on the same instance of VMWare, but only in a test environment. Since VMWare can have quite a few instances on one box, the RAM has to be allocated for each instance. I don't know how VMWare divides up processor power but I would think this would also degrade performance no matter how it does it.

I definitely would not run a production database on VMWare.

alen teplitsky SSC-Dedicated Points: 30014 More actions · Answer 7

we use VMWare here, but on the original webinar a year ago they specifically said that they don't recommend SQL or Exchange due to I/O. if you put SQL or Exchange on VMWARE make sure to assign their own spindles to the instances