The start-to-finish guide to virtualizing business-critical SQL Server databases on VMware vSphere 5

By virtualizing business-critical databases, enterprises can drive far more value from existing IT infrastructure. But squeezing maximum performance out of a virtualized database instance is an art as much as a science. This indispensable start-to-finish guide brings together all the techniques, tips, and insights you need to succeed.

Drawing on unsurpassed personal experience, three leading experts share complete best practices for deploying business-critical database servers in virtualized vSphere 5 environments. They cover the entire project lifecycle, bridging technical and communications gaps between SQL Server and VMware professionals that often make database virtualization more difficult than it needs to be.

You'll find specific guidance for architects and administrators responsible for systems, storage, databases, applications, or VMware virtualization. The authors also present detailed, start-to-finish coverage of performance baselining and testing: all you need to make your virtualized databases as fast as they are cost effective. Although this book focuses on SQL, the authors' proven guidance for enhancing performance can be leveraged by any IT professional virtualizing a demanding Tier 1 application.

Coverage includes

* Business cases for database virtualization: consolidation, Database as a Service (DaaS), efficiency, and "SLAs on steroids"

* Using the redundancy inherent in virtualization to improve availability

* Constructing a careful, conservative implementation plan

* Balancing disk, CPU, memory, and network for superior performance

* Mastering the five key principles of database storage design

* Leveraging memory: SQL MAX, page locking, NUMA, reservations, swapping, large memory pages, and more

* Ensuring responsiveness by providing a fast, reliable, low-latency network

* Supporting advanced AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances and Availability Groups

* Baselining physical systems and properly determining resource requirements

* Configuring performance tests from beginning to end

* Migrating existing SQL Server databases onto a vSphere platform

* Avoiding traps and pitfalls in virtualizing production databases

* Managing and monitoring virtualized database instances and resources