Recently on a private forum that I frequent, a member asked if anyone among us was using server virtualization technology like VMWare in production at their workplace.

My reply is as follows, and should be interesting to anyone considering the viability of server virtualization in small and medium businesses.

We’re using virtualization extensively in production, but ONLY for low usage or administrative functions like Anti Virus reporting, automated software updating, basic file and print services, etc. We’re also using it in production for smaller offices that need to keep hardware costs down while only supporting a few users. We’ve got an entire 10 person network running on a single server running exchange, SQL server for a custom inventory application, and your typical network support software like file and print services, software updating, mobile communications, and threat prevention. We’ve got a spare sitting just below it powered down for emergencies, and the virtualization kept our costs down while allowing us to avoid the irritating software conflicts common to server software.

I think, without a heavy investment into some serious enterprise grade communications and networked storage technology, you can’t get the kind of performance that most of us demand from our SQL servers for a reasonable price. The price to performance ratio is the key to SQL’s widespread virtualization in the future, and it may never get there for small and medium business due to our inability to justify the huge investment in infrastructure that is required.

That being said, we’ve got quite a few virtualized solutions that are using SQL Server in a low utilization scenario (like spam filtering software) and it has worked wonderfully. Likewise for testing environment where virtualization has been an absolute godsend. I think that it all depends on the size of your enterprise and the utilization of the software you’re running when making a judgment on whether or not virtualization is right for you.