SQL Server Advent Calendar 21 - Consolidation

Day 18 of my virtual advent calendar, about stuff I like in SQL Server 2008..

Consolidation has become synonymous with virtualization, but even hardcore VMWare addicts and VMWare themselves advise that databases are one of the last targets of a virtualisation strategy.  Nonetheless SQL Server 2008 is being increasingly virtualised and for those interested in this this whitepaper from SQL CAT (Customer Advisory Team)  is essential reading especially if you are using Hyper-V.

But what if you don’t see virtualisation as the right answer for consolidation what else you can you do?  Traditionally SQL Server has been split up into instances for 2 reasons

1. To guarantee resources to the instance using memory and processor affinity

2. To comply with various arbitrary practices in some third part applications particularly around security.

However for point 1 you might also want to consider Resource Governor (which is only in Enterprise Edition) which fixes resources for groups of users but only affects other non critical groups when the server is under pressure.  I have a good screencast of how resource governor works...

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