vmware

VMware vCloud Air SQL Summarized

Last Updated February 13, 2017

After reading through yesterday’s announcements about VMware vCloud Air SQL, here’s a quick boiled-down version for busy people with jobs: It’s Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2 and 2012 Enterprise Edition hosted in VMware’s data centers (not on-premises.) Only 3 instance sizes are available: small (2vCPU, 8GB RAM), medium (4vCPU, 16GB RAM) and large (8 vCPU). Drive…

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…

VMware HA is Not Database Server High Availability

Last Updated April 8, 2017

Brent Ozar

Clustering, SQL Server, Virtualization

I served with High Availability. I knew High Availability. High Availability was a friend of mine. VMware HA, you’re no High Availability. See, for us database administrators, high availability means protection when: The system drive fills up because some potato decided to download a bunch of files An operating system or database server update goes…

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…

How to Set SQL Server Max Memory for VMware

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

SQL Server, Virtualization

SQL Server has two settings that kinda-sorta govern how much memory we’ll use to cache data: min server memory and max server memory. I explain the basics of how they work in my Sysadmin’s Guide to SQL Server Memory, but things are a little different under virtualization. VMware does a great job of sharing memory…

Reader Letter from Kelly J.

Last Updated October 30, 2012

Brent Ozar

SQL Server, Virtualization

Hi Brent – I would imagine you get many of these notes of appreciation for what you do but I just couldn’t leave the office for the day without say “Thank you so much”. I would have never have thought that my personal investment would have paid such dividends. Today, armed with the awesome information,…

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…