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Whitepapers

Running SQL Server 2008 in a Hyper-V Environment - Best Practices and Performance Recommendations

Published: October 2008

Writers: Lindsey Allen, Mike Ruthruff, Prem Mehra 
Reviewers: Cindy Gross, Burzin Patel, Denny Lee, Michael Thomassy, Sanjay Mishra, Savitha Padmanabhan, Tony Voellm, Bob Ward

 

Based on hypervisor technology, the
Hyper-V™ virtualization feature in the Windows Server® 2008 operating system is a thin layer of software between the hardware and the operating system that allows multiple operating systems to run, unmodified, on a host computer at the same time. Hyper-V is a powerful virtualization technology that can be used by corporate IT to consolidate under-utilized servers, lowering total cost of ownership (TCO) and maintaining or improving quality of service (QoS). Hyper-V opens more potential development and test environment types that otherwise might be constrained by hardware availability. It is challenging enough in general to right-size the hardware to consolidate current workloads and provide headroom for growth. Adding virtualization to the mix increases the potential capacity planning challenges. The goal of this document is to help address these by focusing on two key areas of running Microsoft® SQL Server® in a Hyper-V environment:
  • System resource overhead imposed by running SQL Server in a Hyper-V environment
  • How well Hyper-V scales running SQL Server 2008
This white paper describes a series of test configurations we ran, which represented a variety of possible scenarios involving SQL Server running in Hyper-V. The paper discusses our results and observations, and it also presents our recommendations. Our test results showed that SQL Server 2008 on Hyper-V provides stable performance and scalability. We believe Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is a solid platform for SQL Server 2008 for the appropriate workload. It is practical to run production workloads under a Hyper-V environment, as long as the workload is within the capacity of your Hyper-V guest virtual machine.

 

For more information, please refer to the whitepaper Running SQL Server 2008 in a Hyper-V Environment - Best Practices and Performance Recommendations.

 

Comments

 

WesleyB's Blog said:

This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions since we have released Hyper-V and SQL Server

October 4, 2008 9:30 AM
 

ALL TOPICS PERFORMANCE said:

Wow this is great day. The SQL team has worked really hard in creating a performance guidance document

October 6, 2008 8:33 PM
 

SQL Server 2008 on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Performance Guidance : EasyCoded said:

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October 6, 2008 8:51 PM
 

SQL Server 2008 on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V - Performance Guidance said:

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October 7, 2008 4:49 AM
 

GlennAlanBerry said:

Very nice work on this!

October 8, 2008 2:04 PM
 

SQL Server and Virtualization « Systems Engineering and RDBMS said:

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October 8, 2008 7:44 PM
 

SQL Server, BizTalk Server, le 64 bits et au-delà !... said:

Suite à la récente annonce d' Extension du support de SQL Server en environnements virtualisés...

October 10, 2008 10:19 AM
 

A few things you may not already know said:

De jours en jours la liste des applications supportant une mise en oeuvre en environnement Windows Server

October 11, 2008 4:54 PM
 

Steffen über SQL, SharePoint und HPC said:

Das Whitepaper für SQL Server 2008 unter Hyper-V ist fertig und kann hier gefunden werden Ich bin

October 17, 2008 10:17 AM
 

Microsoft Norge - Nyheter for norske teknikere said:

For de av dere som er interessert i å lære mer om hvordan man kan kjøre SQL Server på best mulig måte

October 21, 2008 6:21 AM
 

Cheng's Random Thoughts on System Management said:

Now the world of IT is turning its focus on consolidating the physical computers into virtual machines.

October 27, 2008 2:47 PM
 

Running SQL server 2008 on Hyper-V at MS Tech News said:

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October 27, 2008 4:51 PM
 

Clive Watson's Weblog said:

Ok...so in the last 3 weeks I've been asked this numerous times (and to save emailing it again!), the

November 3, 2008 10:58 AM
 

Kun je SQL Server virtualiseren? « EarlyBert said:

Pingback from  Kun je SQL Server virtualiseren? « EarlyBert

November 5, 2008 10:49 AM
 

There's Something about SQL! said:

Just discovered whilst at TechEd that Microsoft policies for SQL Server products that are running in

November 6, 2008 6:12 AM
 

SQL Server and Virtualization - can we help? | MS Tech News said:

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November 6, 2008 6:17 AM
 

Zeus, Microsoft and more with and without virtulisation. » Blog Archive » Tech-Ed EMEA 2008 You’ve seen the marketing now find out what’s really going on! said:

Pingback from  Zeus, Microsoft and more with and without virtulisation.  » Blog Archive   » Tech-Ed EMEA 2008 You’ve seen the marketing now find out what’s really going on!

November 10, 2008 6:06 AM
 

Блог Войцеховского Максима said:

Пока писал предыдущий пост ( Производительность MOSS в виртуальной среде Hyper-V ) нашел аналогичное

November 11, 2008 3:24 PM
 

Glorf IT - Bedenkliches aus dem IT-Alltag » SQL Server unter Hyper-V said:

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November 13, 2008 6:13 PM
 

Virtualisation SQL and the Art of War! said:

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November 20, 2008 4:13 AM
 

Steel Cage Blogmatch Part Two: The SQL | Brent Ozar - SQL Server DBA said:

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November 26, 2008 7:21 AM
 

markwilson.it » Useful Links: November 2008 said:

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December 1, 2008 6:31 AM
 

Slovenski TechNet blog said:

Kako deluje SQL Server 2008 v virtualnem okolju ? Kakšne so njegove performance? Članek opisuje testiranja

December 12, 2008 4:46 AM
 

Bryan Krieger said:

Technorati Tags: TFS , SQL 2008 , Hyper-V , Virtualization If you are looking information on if you can

December 17, 2008 4:03 PM
 

B.I. the way... said:

Because PerformancePoint Server is integrated with SQL Server and Office SharePoint Server (or WSS),

December 21, 2008 10:41 PM
 

SQL Server Support in a Hardware Virtualization Environment | Sunny Khowledge Share said:

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December 29, 2008 7:53 AM
 

Jimmy May, Aspiring Geek: SQL Server Performance, Best Practices, Productivity, etc.
said:

I'm a lucky guy. Besides the fact that I'm healthy, alive, & living on the planet earth "in interesting

March 10, 2009 11:54 AM
 

Cindy Gross - Troubleshooting, tips, and general advice about SQL Server said:

Many companies are now looking to consolidate their SQL Server instances. The old strategy of one instance

June 12, 2009 4:22 PM
 

Websites tagged "hypervisor" on Postsaver said:

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June 17, 2009 4:17 AM
 

SQL Server Storage Engine & Tools (SSQA.net) said:

Microsoft's technical support policy for SQL Server 2005 and 2008 version has been changed when it comes

August 4, 2009 7:57 AM
 

jonasonline.se said:

Virtualizing SQL server

August 5, 2009 5:59 AM
 

Whitepapers Running SQL Server 2008 in a Hyper-V Environment | Start SQL - SQL Server Articles and Tutorials said:

Pingback from  Whitepapers Running SQL Server 2008 in a Hyper-V Environment | Start SQL - SQL Server Articles and Tutorials

January 18, 2010 4:42 AM
 

Buck Woody said:

I have a presentation that I give on SQL Server Consolidation Strategies, and in that presentation I

March 9, 2010 9:11 AM
 

Consolidation Strategy References | ASP Scribe said:

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March 9, 2010 10:04 AM
 

SQL Server Storage Engine & Tools (SSQA.net) said:

Server consolidation & virtualization is a hot topic and also it is one of the biggest concerns for

April 30, 2010 5:40 AM
 

final test pingback from « End Year 2012 said:

Pingback from  final test pingback from «  End Year 2012

May 6, 2010 2:18 AM
 

virtualboy blog said:

Hot on the heels of Thursday’s post on the virtualising of SharePoint 2010 , I thought I’d share with

June 5, 2010 5:47 AM
 

Tips and Resources for SQL 2008 R2 Virtualization « IT Core Blog said:

Pingback from  Tips and Resources for SQL 2008 R2 Virtualization «  IT Core Blog

June 5, 2010 4:47 PM
 

Travis Laird said:

Virtualized SQL Server 2008 Performance in VMware and Hyper-V

June 27, 2010 5:58 PM

About Lindsey.allen

Lindsey Allen has been working with SQL Server and Business Intelligence for the past 15+ years. She joint Microsoft Consulting Services summer of 1995 and transitioned to SQL Server Product Group summer of 2005. Lindsey is currently managing SQLCAT Best Practice and Customer Lab team.
sql, server, best practices, whitepapers, analysis services, data mining, olap, datawarehouse, datawarehousing, availability, clustering, capacity, collation, data types, data warehouse, database, design, index, mirroring, optimization, partitions, performance, precision, processing, querying, scalability, security, reporting services, integration services
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