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Virtualization

Nodes Offline: Why Your SQL Server VM Can’t Use All Its Virtual Hardware

Last Updated June 12, 2020

When you install SQL Server Standard or Web Edition in a virtual machine with more than 4 cores, things can look like they’re just fine – when in reality, you’re not using anywhere near your server’s potential. See, these editions have a tricky limitation – let’s look at the documentation: Standard and Web Edition Limitations Here’s…

Hyper-V: Getting Your Host And Guest Connected

Last Updated June 3, 2017

SQL Server, Virtualization

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…

VMware vCloud Air SQL Summarized

Last Updated February 13, 2017

SQL Server, Virtualization

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…

Basic VMware and Hyper-V Terminology for the SQL Server DBA

Last Updated July 13, 2017

SQL Server DBAs often need to work with virtualization– and frequently need to work with multiple virtualization platforms. Many platforms have similar features, but they often have different names, and it’s hard to remember what everything’s called. I’ve got a little cheat sheet for you for two of the platforms! (No offense, Xen fans, please…

Are You Getting the Benefits of Virtualization?

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Licensing, SQL Server, Virtualization

Here’s some of the reasons companies usually virtualize their SQL Servers: Cost savings on hardware Cost savings on Windows OS licensing Cost savings on SQL Server licensing Protect against the failure of a single hardware element Leverage extended features for Disaster Recovery Automatic load balancing across multiple hosts Easier hardware replacement/migration When we perform a SQL Critical…

The Third Concern for SQL Server Virtualization: Capacity Planning

Last Updated September 17, 2014

Our first two concerns in this series were virtualization licensing and recoverability. It’s not enough to have answers for these questions today, though – we have to think about how long the server will be in place. The server’s expiration date isn’t dictated by IT. If it was up to us, we’d never run an old,…

The Second Concern for SQL Server Virtualization: Recoverability

Last Updated October 3, 2014

Your first concern is licensing, and once you’ve got that under control, it’s time to talk about backups, restores, and uptime. The business begins by defining the RPO and RTO requirements for high availability, disaster recovery, and “oops” deletions. Use our High Availability Planning Worksheet and fill in the “Current” column on page 1: High…

The Very First Concern with SQL Virtualization: Licensing

Last Updated February 9, 2017

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,…

Book Review: Virtualizing SQL Server with VMware

Last Updated December 9, 2018

Book Reviews, Virtualization

tl;dr – I do not recommend this book. I was so incredibly excited when it was originally announced. A book published by VMware Press, written by prominent VMware, SQL, and storage consultants? GREAT! So much has changed in those topics over the last few years, and it’s high time we got official word on how…

Sticker Price for SQL Server 2012

What’s the Smallest SQL Server You Should Build?

Last Updated February 13, 2017

SQL Server, Virtualization

Before we pick CPUs or memory, let’s start by looking at SQL Server 2012’s licensing costs: Sticker Price for SQL Server 2012 These are MSRP prices and do not include the extra costs for Software Assurance (maintenance) or any discounts for being a school, non-profit, or those photos you have of Bill Gates. Physical, Standard…

Auto-Scaling SQL Server Always On Availability Groups with Virtualization

Last Updated February 13, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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…

SQL Server Virtualization Q&A

Last Updated February 9, 2017

In my recent “Why Is My Virtual SQL Server So Slow?” webcast, we got a lot of great questions in chat. Here’s some of the highlights: Question: “Why would I virtualize a 4-core server and turn it into a 2-core VM? Doesn’t performance go down?” If you’ve got an existing physical box, and your only…

For the record, he didn't really trust the Soviets either.

Read-Only View Permissions and Roles in VMware vSphere

Last Updated February 13, 2017

SQL Server, Virtualization

When Ronald Reagan said, “Trust, but verify,” he was talking about DBAs working with their VMware sysadmins. "Trust, but verify." Ronald Reagan As a consultant, I get to see a lot of SQL Server implementations – both successes and failures. The successes have one thing in common: transparency. The database administrators, VMware admins, and storage…

Lacie IAmAKey Drive

Top 10 Keys to Deploying SQL Server on VMware

Last Updated February 9, 2017

The most successful deployments of virtual SQL Servers have a few things in common. When a company is doing all of these things, odds are they’re going to be very happy with their virtual SQL Servers: 10. Use vSphere 4.1, not earlier versions. vSphere 4.1 introduced major improvements in multi-CPU scheduling that vastly improve performance. …