New White Paper on Hyper-V and SQL Server Consolidation at Microsoft

 

New White Paper on Hyper-V and SQL Server Consolidation at Microsoft

A new white paper on how Microsoft IT is combining Hyper-V and SQL Server has just been published. This comes from a team that provides thousands of SQL Server instances for internal applications. It includes a lot of interesting new information, including results of specific tests they performed to evaluate their options. This is something that I first saw on an internal-only presentation a few weeks back and I'm glad they posted it publicly. 

Here's are the topics covered in this 26-page white paper:

• Executive Overview
• Introduction
• Considerations for Consolidation and Virtualization
  • Identification of Underutilized Servers
  • Server temperature
  • Consolidation Approaches
  • Virtualization Platform: WSRM vs. Hyper-V
• Implementation of the SQL Utility
  • Service Offerings
  • Identification of Candidates for Migration
• Attributes of System Quality
  • Availability and Business Continuity
  • Environmental Sustainability
  • Manageability
  • Performance
  • Predictability and Repeatability
  • Reliability
  • Scalability
  • Security
  • Monitoring
  • Supportability
• Conclusion

It also includes lots of interesting diagrams, including details on their specific hardward configuration. While not evident on the outline above, the white paper compares the options to use multiple instances of SQL without Hyper-V with having multiple virtual machines with single instances of SQL Server. Not only it looks at the different pros and cons, but also provides interesting performance information.

Download the white paper from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd557540.aspx

Jose Barreto's Blog : New White Paper on Hyper-V and SQL Server Consolidation at Microsoft