Virtualized SQL Server: Why not?

Question

The IT department where I work is trying to move to 100% virtualized servers, with all the data stored on a SAN. They haven\'t done it yet, but the plan eventually calls for mo

Answer 1

Old Question with Old Answers

The answers in this thread are years old. Most of the negative points in this entire thread are technically still correct but much less relevant. The overhead cost of virtualization and SAN’s is much less a factor now than it used to be. A correctly configured Virtualization host, guest, network, and SAN can provide good performance with the benefits of virtualization and operational flexibility including good recovery scenarios that are only provided by being virtual.

However, in the real world it only takes one minor configuration detail to bring the whole thing to its knees. In practice your biggest challenge with virtual SQL servers is convincing and working with the people responsible for the virtualization to get it set up just right.

Irony, in 100 percent of the cases where we took production off of the virtualization and moved it back to dedicated hardware performance went through the roof on the dedicated hardware. In all of these cases it was not the virtualization but the way it was setup. By going back to dedicated hardware we actually proved that the virtualization would have been a much better use of resources by factors of 5 or more. Modern software is usually designed to scale out across nodes so virtualization works to your advantage on that front as well.