Hello,

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/sql_server_virt_bp.pdf

Page 7 :

This behavior is not likely to be found on the VMware hosted products.

I disagree.

Maybe in version 3.5, but with vSphere we have had excellent performance for SQL in our VMware environment.  In fact we just finished converting a physical SQL server that was using direct storage (Dell MD3K) to a vSphere cluster running on an EMC CX3-40 and they've seen 5x-6x increase in performance.

I'm not saying that it might be slightly faster to use physical hosts direct attaching via 4GB FC to the EMC SAN, but given the additional HA capabilities, and the virtualization of the hardware (not being tied to maintenance contracts, and hardware refreshes) more than makes up for the "loss" of performance of not having it direct attached to dedicated physical hardware.

Regarding Burdweiser's post... I 100% agree with your post and am grateful someone is willing to come on here and challenge the masses.

SQL will run fine, I have many a VMs doing it right now. It is key to remember to size your virtual environment the same as your physical environment, by this I mean, if you are going to give your physical box 5 spindles don't give your VM 4 spindles and then share it with 5 other VMs and expect to get the same performance. Also important to keep in mind is the number of CPUs and how a vCPU (core) relates to a physical CPU (socket with multiple cores).