Next week at the Nashville SQL Server User Group, John Rives of Amniox is going to speak about using SQL Server with clustered virtualization. Unfortunately, I'm not going  to be able to attend due to a prior commitment, however I have spoken with John about his presentation and it definitely sounds promising. If you're in the area, I'd encourage you to come on out. I certainly wish I could be there.

I don't have any SQL Servers in a virtualized environment. In fact, I have only worked with one company that does, and that is on a very underutilized server with little load so it's not very representative of actual usage and performance.

So, with little actual experience from which to draw, I'm left wondering about the benefits of virtualization. Advocates often point to virtualization's better use of resources through increased density. I can see that, but does that benefit outweigh the complexity that it creates? Especially for troubleshooting performance issues due to resource contention. I don't know.

I've done a little research in the area and have found the following online resources. I thought I'd share them in case you're considering creating your own virtualized SQL world.

• http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/virtualization.mspx
• http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/power/ps4q06-20060405-Muirhead.pdf
• http://www.vmware.com/technology/virtual-infrastructure-apps/microsoft/sql_server.html
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/default.aspx

If you've run SQL Server in a virtualized environment, I'd love to hear of your experiences. Drop me an email or add a comment in the feedback section below.

Thanks!

Joe