Comments on: Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Virtualize SQL Server

By: 2010 Retrospective | Matt Velic

2010 Retrospective | Matt Velic — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 02:38:26 +0000

[...] I have interesting memories of when the then-DBA showed me a few tricks for looking after the database for the times when he was out of office. Everything he taught me was backwards in some way or another. For example, when the database seemed slow, I was shown to how to log onto the server and check the stats thrown out by the Task Manager. And it’s when I think of these “lessons” that I see how much I’ve grown. (And for those of you who don’t know why Task Manager isn’t the best gauge of system performance, please read the section of this post by Brent Ozar ( Blog | @BrentO ) entitled It’s Tougher to Get Good Performance Reporting. [...]

By: An Accidental List for an Accidental DBA | Matt Velic

An Accidental List for an Accidental DBA | Matt Velic — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 02:36:06 +0000

[...] The worst, in my opinion, is checking the Task Manager when the application is slow. First, Task Manager may show a misleading amount of memory being used by SQL Server, especially on 32-bit servers. Now consider if your servers are being virtualized, like ours are, and the underlying hardware is being abstracted in that process. Given that the virtualized server can be moved from one set of hardware to another – all without DBA knowledge – Task Manager simply cannot be trusted. [...]

By: amy

amy — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 02:27:34 +0000

great video brent! thx

By: Brent Ozar

Brent Ozar — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:14:29 +0000

Jeffry – According to the VMware docs, yes, that’s true, but it depends on workload.