Aryan Nava

One of the first questions my customers ask when considering virtualization is “Is SharePoint supported in a virtualized environment?” This question breaks down into two questions that need to be answered. 

1. Is SharePoint technology supported in a virtualized environment at all?
2. Is my chosen virtualization vendor’s technology supported?

The SharePoint and windows product team announced support for virtualization of SharePoint on Windows using a number of virtualization products. From a Microsoft perspective, Virtual Server 2005  and Hyper V are fully supported. Third party products, such as VMWare, are also supported via the Windows Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP). This is  fantastic news for the enterprises with existing investments in virtualization products, such as VMWARE ESX virtualization stack. Here are links to the official statements on Microsoft websites:

• Hardware virtualization support for SharePoint products and technologies
• Support policy for Microsoft software running in non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software
• Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) (A full list of certified virtualization vendors is available here.)

Real World Support Caveats

• Microsoft may require the issue to be reproduced independently from the non Microsoft hardware virtualization software (KB897615). This  means that Microsoft will still support you, but if the issue is due to the virtualization vendor, you will need to approach them first.
• The snapshot feature of Hyper V and other virtualization products  are not supported for SharePoint farms; See : Using SharePoint Products and Technologies in a Hyper V environment. Snapshots in farms with more than one server may cause inconsistencies when rolling back to a previous snapshot on one of the servers in the farm which may result in data corruption.

The following is a list of the main drivers we have experienced in existing customer environments:

• Data Centre issues such as limited or no power and rack space available.
• Saving your company money by reducing your infrastructure footprint and reducing the power and cooling costs required.
• Green IT : reduce carbon footprint by reducing the power consumption of your organization.
• The need for greater mobility, flexibility and manageability in your data centre.
• Your salary increase and bonus 🙂  … Implementing strategies that save your company money, that promote Green IT, and that still provide a great service to end users is a fantastic way to justify your salary increase or bonus, in measurable terms, to your boss. It’s a win – win situation!

Learn about the architectural considerations when trying to virtualize Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007). This deck assumes you have good grounding in virtualization technology and discusses virtualization from a vendor-neutral view point. Contained in this presentation is valuable insight around I/O utilization, RAM usage, CPU assignments, and storage when deploying SharePoint virtually. The presentation was first presented at the SharePoint Best Practices Conference UK in 2009. This deck was written by Brian Wilson of Microsoft Consulting Services UK and reused by and adapted by Viral Tarpara, IT Pro Evangelist, or Microsoft UK.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/6623366/SharePoint-Virtualization-Best-Practices