It’s been a while since we talked about using Virtual Machines (VM) as server hosts for SQL Server. There was a time when performance on a VM was not worth the benefits provided by a VM system, and we continued to use physical systems. However, as the architecture of CPUs has changed, the reduction in performance of a VM server hosting SQL Server is negligible, and often not relevant, based on the needs of client applications.
I’m curios how the adoption of VMs is growing in our community. If you support SQL Server in your organization, or as a consultant, do you prefer to host your SQL Server instances on a VM, or only on physical, dedicated hardware? What are the key features of a VM you find attractive?
Using a VM does come with some additional cost, especially if you are using them for isolation of databases from one instance to another. What I mean is, if a single physical machine could easily host two databases in a single instance of SQL Server, if you wish to isolate those databases on that same machine using to Virtual Machines, then you have doubled your licensing costs to have separate instances. Unless you were going to purchase two separate machines anyway, then your costs have gone up in order to have this isolation.
Is disaster recovery a key reason for using VMs? Do you find it helpful to be able to more easily move a database instance from one VM to another? Are you using VMs as a way to make it easier to apply ant test updates to the operating system, and/or SQL Server? Do you simply spin up your own Azure VM instances, or prefer to host them on site?
That’s a lot of questions. Help us get a feel for your adoption of Virtual Machines by getting into the conversation with your comment.
Cheers,
Ben