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SQL Server on VMware vSphere Best Practices: Host, Disk, CPU and Memory Considerations

Part 1: SQL Server on VMware vSphere Best Practices: Host, Disk, CPU and Memory Considerations
Part 2: SQL Server on VMware vSphere Best Practices: Availability Group, Licensing and Other Considerations

I realized recently that I never documented my process for designing high-performance Microsoft SQL environments on VMware vSphere. For the most part, what you’re about to read is a brain dump, and is intended to serve as an outline. Please make sure that you research all of the configurations for your specific deployment requirements, rather than take everything I say and dump it in to your shiny new Microsoft SQL environment. In Part 1, we’ll dive into some of the more common settings and configurations that are done in a virtualized SQL environment.

ESXi Host Considerations

Power Management

A good rule of thumb is to set Power Management to High Performance on the ESXi host. This needs to be done both in the BIOS and from within the vSphere Client to take effect.

Second Level Address Transaltion (SLAT)

It’s necessary that the host supports Second Level Address Transaltion. Most 64-bit processors support this technology. When referencing Intel processors, SLAT = Extended Page Tables. When referencing AMD processors, SLAT

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