Virtualizing SQL and Exchange

[prutter]

Can any give their comments on Why or Why Not virtualize SQL and Exchange. We are a shop of 105 users that don't hit things very hard and we are looking for some SOLID proof either way. Any comment or suggestion wold be appreciated very much. THanks!

[marcelo_soares]

Just some points:

- You CAN virtualize both things

- Plan very well the memory/cpu/storage provisioning for your servers

- Do not try to take milk from stones - try not to overcommint so much your environment

I can safely tell you that I already saw MANY environments running this kind of applications.

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310/410

Virtualization Tech Master

Globant Argentina

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[weinstein5]

I agree with MArcelo there is no reason why you can't virtualized sql and exchange - I have seen many large implementations fo SQL and Exchange done with out any problems -

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[jbruelasdgo]

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-11504 (SQL)

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-11493 (SQL)

Jose B Ruelas

http://aservir.wordpress.com

[meistermn]

Navy is a good a example for exchange.

www.vmware.com/files/pdf/.../09Q3_cs_vmw_NMCI_Exchange_english.pdf

United States Navy Marine Corps virtualizes 700,000+ Microsoft Exchange users to Achieve Mission Critical Reliability :smileycool:

http://communities.vmware.com/post!reply.jspa?threadID=260573

[AndreTheGiant]

See also:

http://www.vmware.com/solutions/business-critical-apps/sql/

http://www.vmware.com/solutions/business-critical-apps/exchange/

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/exchange_best_practices.pdf

Andre

[prutter]

To everyone who responded i say thank you. A couple more questions if i could. Although i do know that youcan virtualize Exchange and SQL, i was curious if there were any "limits" to where you might think of NOT virtualizing. One reason that i ask is that we are looking into a network monitoring tool (Orion) and it is recommended that it not be virtualized. I was curious why that might be. I understand that there is a lot of traffic but since we are a snall shop i thouhgt that might not matter. Currently we have all SQL virualized but not Exchange but we are getting ready to make that switch as well. I am curious at what point one might not want to virtualize those two apps. Any other comments are appreciated. Once again thank you all for the outstanding info. <!Session data>

[Chuck8773]

I recommend not making the monitoring tool dependent on the things that you are monitoring. If you have it in a VM, put it in a separate cluster on a separate SAN.

As for what limits of when not to virtualize. I have not run into any yet. We have SQL DB' at 350 GB's. I know that Exchange has been installed in ESX with up to 500,000 mailboxes. I don't have more details on that though.

Charles Killmer, VCP4

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[prutter]

Thanks for the input Chuck. Does anyone else have any comments about putting a NetMon tool on a VM? We are getting ready to get this done and i would like to have a better feeling about this. My feelings are that the size of our shop isn't going to hit this SQL server that hard to make a difference and that's whay i woul dlike to put it on a VM. If we can virtualize 100,000 exchange users i would think we could virtualize this type of app as well. Any comments and suggestions are welcome. Thanks agai to all that have replied and i must say that this is a Great site!! Thanks!

[prutter]

Marcelo,

What exactly do you mean by "don't overcommit so much"??