Guest Failover Clustering now supported for virtualised SQL Server

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Just in case you missed it!!! Microsoft Support announced an update to the SQL Server virtualisation support policy.

 

Guest Failover Clustering is supported for SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 in a virtual machine for Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, and SVVP certified configurations provided both of the following requirements are met:

  • The Operating System running in the virtual machine (the “Guest Operating System”) is Windows Server 2008 or higher
  • The virtualization environment meets the requirements of Windows 2008 Failover Clustering as documented at The Microsoft Support Policy for Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters.

Guest Failover Clustering is when you create a SQL Server failover cluster inside a virtual machine where the nodes are running as a virtual machine. A non-SVVP configuration that meets these requirements will receive support from Microsoft CSS per the policies documented in

897615 (https://support.microsoft.com/kb/897615/ ) Support policy for Microsoft software running in non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software

It is important to read through some of these details:

  • We support both Hyper-V and SVVP configurations
  • SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 are supported.
  • We only support Windows Server 2008 or higher as the operating system running inside the virtual machine (known as the “guest” operating system). Because of this requirement, SQL Server 2000 and earlier SQL Server releases are not supported.
  • The virtualization vendor must meet the requirements for failover clustering as documented in the following KB article: The Microsoft Support Policy for Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters
  • Non-SVVP configurations that meet all of these requirements still can get some support from Microsoft per https://support.microsoft.com/kb/897615.

 

For more information: https://blogs.msdn.com/psssql/archive/2009/05/19/sql-server-support-policy-for-failover-clustering-and-virtualization-gets-an-update.aspx