virtualization

Hyper-V: Getting Your Host And Guest Connected

Last Updated June 3, 2017

Because I always forget stuff like this I have a confession to make, dear readers: I am a horrible VM admin. I’m also not great at networking. When I go to set up a VM to do something like install SQL vNext, I want to be able to talk to it. Why bother? Well, SSMS…

The Very First Concern with SQL Virtualization: Licensing

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

Licensing, SQL Server, Virtualization

Every single thing you do with a virtual SQL Server starts with one very important concern: how are you going to license it? The 3 Common Ways to License Virtual SQL Servers The software licensing section of my local library Developer Edition, by the guest – Developer Edition has all the power of Enterprise Edition,…

Auto-Scaling SQL Server Always On Availability Groups with Virtualization

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Always On Availability Groups, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Virtualization

Time for a thought exercise. Thought exercises are hard. You’ve got a database application that has bursty and unpredictable loads. Out of nowhere, you’ll suddenly get socked with a large amount of SELECT queries. Due to the way the app is written, you can’t cache the query results – the queries keep changing, and the business…

Brent Answers Your Virtualization Questions

Last Updated April 12, 2013

Brent Ozar

SQL Server, Virtualization

I’m doing a 1-hour open Q&A session on May 8th for the PASS Virtualization Virtual Chapter. Bring your VMware and Hyper-V questions about setup, performance, management, monitoring, or whatever, and I’ll answer ’em. You can even get a head start here – post your questions in the comments below, and I’ll build slides to answer…

Big Changes for Big Virtual Machines in VMware vSphere 5

Last Updated June 17, 2013

Brent Ozar

SQL Server, Virtualization

Even if your SQL Server is the only guest on a host, it still might not be as fast as bare metal. One of the reasons is NUMA, which stands for Not Ur Momma’s Architecture. Okay, no, smart reader, you caught me – it actually stands for Non-Uniform Memory Access. In your momma’s architecture (Symmetric…

Why Your SQL Server Cluster Shouldn’t Be Virtualized

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

Clustering, Virtualization

When people buy my virtualization training video, one of the followup questions I get most often via email is, “Can I build SQL Server clusters in VMware and Hyper-V?” In theory, yes. Microsoft’s knowledge base article on SQL Server virtualization support says they’ll support you as long as you’re using configurations listed in the Server…