First, pardon the constant referral to a VMWare product. Everything else we are running is basically Microsoft...
A very useful feature of VMWare ESXi 4.1 (and earlier versions) is the ability to revert to a previous snapshot in case of problems such as a failed server update. I had read that Microsoft will not support SQL or Exchange servers that were reverted to from a snapshot because the VMWare snapshot was not VSS-aware. I have since found that version 4.1is VSS-aware if the conditions below are met. I have not found any statement on Microsoft's site, however, confirming they support this.
Can anyone confirm whether or not Microsoft will support the use of VMWare snapshots for SQL and Exchange servers running on VMWare 4.1?
As mentioned, here are the criteria I had seen for getting a valid snapshot of a SQL or Exchange server:
- The UUID attribute must be enabled. This is enabled by default on virtual machines created on ESX 4.1 hosts.
- The virtual machine must use only SCSI disks. For example, application-consistent quiescing is not supported for virtual machines with IDE disks. There must as many free SCSI slots in the virtual machine as the number of disks. For example, if there are 8 SCSI disks on SCSI adapter 1, there are not enough SCSI slots free to perform application quiescing.
- The virtual machine must not use dynamic disks.