vCenter Database Drive Config (when virtual)

[Peter_Grant]

Hi,

I'm designing a vCenter for a multi-site / multi-datacenter VI of approx 50 Hosts.

I've decided to make the vCenter database virtual and run SQL 2008 on the local vCenter server (I didn't see any advantage of creating a separate virtual machine just for the DB)

Best practices are to put DB logs and transaction files on different drives for performance benefits but if this is virtual then is there any point? The datastore consists of 15k FC disks so the question is do I create 3 vmdk files (C:, 😧 & E:) for OS/vCenter , Transaction & Logs or just create a C: for OS/vCenter and a 😧 for the SQL side?

Thanks

Pete

[sflanders · Accepted solution]

For performance reasons alone I would recommend running SQL in a separate VM if at all possible. As for the best practices you have highlighted the reason is two-fold:

1. There are different read/write ratios for data versus logs and a case can be made to use different disks or different RAID configurations. As such you could have a datastore that is RAID 5 for data and a datastore RAID 10 for logs.

2. Data queues - Using different disks helps alleviate this problem.

More information can be found:

• http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/sql_server_virt_bp.pdf

• http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1002951

[brettparlier]

I agree with sflanders suggestion in running SQL on a different VM if at all possible. When you configure your storage in different manners for the different types of data/databases you can increase performance as well as stability. Your databases will have different types of reads/writes and will access the data contained in a different manner than the OS would (increased performance for different IOPS). Of course, this is just a suggestion...but that is the route I would go if you can. Hope this helps!