Comments on: Why Would You Virtualize SQL Server? http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2009/03/why-would-you-virtualize-sql-server/ Your technology pain-relief experts. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:37:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Virtualisation and SQL server Drija http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2009/03/why-would-you-virtualize-sql-server/comment-page-1/#comment-24490 Virtualisation and SQL server Drija Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:49:18 +0000 http://www.brentozar.com/?p=2948#comment-24490 [...] Here and Here Good luck, we are testing out SQL on a Xen server w/ fibre Sans as I type. [...] [...] Here and Here Good luck, we are testing out SQL on a Xen server w/ fibre Sans as I type. [...]

]]> By: Brent Ozar http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2009/03/why-would-you-virtualize-sql-server/comment-page-1/#comment-14651 Brent Ozar Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:05:24 +0000 http://www.brentozar.com/?p=2948#comment-14651 Doug - wow, ouch, no, I would not call that resilient. I'd avoid virtualization with JBODs at all costs. Consider picking up a shared storage environment. If you want to stick with the Dell gear, they acquired Equallogic and they've been updating that iSCSI SAN gear. You can get into that fairly inexpensively, and then you'll be able to survive if one of your hosts dies. You can just boot up the guests on another host. Otherwise, you're not adding resiliency - you're actually getting even worse by putting all of your eggs in one basket. If that one JBOD fails, if the cable fails, if the RAID card fails, or if the PowerEdge fails, suddenly you've lost all of your guests at once. That's dangerous. If you're using Exchange 2003, I would also highly recommend against virtualizing that first. Start with the web apps with lower storage throughput requirements. Exchange is notoriously tough on storage throughput, and you'll be very dissatisfied if you virtualize that first. Hope that helps! Doug – wow, ouch, no, I would not call that resilient. I’d avoid virtualization with JBODs at all costs. Consider picking up a shared storage environment. If you want to stick with the Dell gear, they acquired Equallogic and they’ve been updating that iSCSI SAN gear. You can get into that fairly inexpensively, and then you’ll be able to survive if one of your hosts dies. You can just boot up the guests on another host. Otherwise, you’re not adding resiliency – you’re actually getting even worse by putting all of your eggs in one basket. If that one JBOD fails, if the cable fails, if the RAID card fails, or if the PowerEdge fails, suddenly you’ve lost all of your guests at once. That’s dangerous.

If you’re using Exchange 2003, I would also highly recommend against virtualizing that first. Start with the web apps with lower storage throughput requirements. Exchange is notoriously tough on storage throughput, and you’ll be very dissatisfied if you virtualize that first. Hope that helps!

]]> By: Doug http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2009/03/why-would-you-virtualize-sql-server/comment-page-1/#comment-14648 Doug Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:19:08 +0000 http://www.brentozar.com/?p=2948#comment-14648 If you are asking about why we are looking at using JBOD’s….because that is a solution recommended to us. We want an economical solution that is resillient and offers some redundancy (RAID) where we could keep a spare drive or two on hand. We were thinking that not having the drives in the PE2950’s was the way to go for scalability. We don’t have a large SQL install. We want to get our feet wet with virtualization by migrating our Exchange install and then upgrading it on the virualized environment. If all goes well we’d move one or two IIS-based smaller apps as their own environments… What would be a some good storage options for this sort of install? If you are asking about why we are looking at using JBOD’s….because that is a solution recommended to us. We want an economical solution that is resillient and offers some redundancy (RAID) where we could keep a spare drive or two on hand. We were thinking that not having the drives in the PE2950’s was the way to go for scalability. We don’t have a large SQL install. We want to get our feet wet with virtualization by migrating our Exchange install and then upgrading it on the virualized environment. If all goes well we’d move one or two IIS-based smaller apps as their own environments… What would be a some good storage options for this sort of install?

]]> By: Doug http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2009/03/why-would-you-virtualize-sql-server/comment-page-1/#comment-14647 Doug Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:18:40 +0000 http://www.brentozar.com/?p=2948#comment-14647 If you are asking about why we are looking at using JBOD's....because that is a solution recommended to us. We want an economical solution that is resillient and offers some redundancy (RAID) where we could keep a spare drive or two on hand. We were thinking that not having the drives in the PE2950's was the way to go for scalability. We don't have a large SQL install. We want to get our feet wet with virtualization by migrating our Exchange install and then upgrading it on the virualized environment. If all goes well we'd move one or two IIS-based smaller apps as their own environments... What would be a some good storage options for this sort of install? If you are asking about why we are looking at using JBOD’s….because that is a solution recommended to us. We want an economical solution that is resillient and offers some redundancy (RAID) where we could keep a spare drive or two on hand. We were thinking that not having the drives in the PE2950′s was the way to go for scalability. We don’t have a large SQL install. We want to get our feet wet with virtualization by migrating our Exchange install and then upgrading it on the virualized environment. If all goes well we’d move one or two IIS-based smaller apps as their own environments… What would be a some good storage options for this sort of install?

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