topic SMSQL in a VMware VM Scenarios in Data Protection

SMSQL in a VMware VM Scenarios

animesh129 — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:04:36 GMT

Hi,

I wanted to check the support on a few scenarios:

1. Windows Guest OS in VMware 4.1, running SQL , SDU 6.2, SMSQL, sees ISCSI LUNS direclty from FAS3000 without using RDM. Is this supported?

2. In the above scenario, if there is a need to have Microsoft Clustering, is that supported? or needed in a VMware environment?

3. With SDU 6.3 and VSC 2.0.1, can I have scenario 1 and 2 above with everything being hosted on VMware datastores?

Appreciate the help.

Re: SMSQL in a VMware VM Scenarios

radek_kubka — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:43:31 GMT

Hi,

Presumably you are talking about SDW (SnapDrive for Windows), not the SDU (SnapDrive for Unix), right?

1. Windows Guest OS in VMware 4.1, running SQL , SDU 6.2, SMSQL, sees ISCSI LUNS direclty from FAS3000 without using RDM. Is this supported?

Do you mean iSCSI software initiator running inside guest VM, talking to a LUN on a filer? I believe it is still supported, yet iSCSI RDM will probably perform better (VMware iSCSI stack is quite good).

2. In the above scenario, if there is a need to have Microsoft Clustering, is that supported? or needed in a VMware environment?

MSCS in VMware is a very hairy topic. The support for it used to be limited to FC only plus few other hefty restrictions (e.g. making VM tied up to a particular ESX host). Having said this, many people were reporting running sucesfully MSCS over iSCSI.

3. With SDU 6.3 and VSC 2.0.1, can I have scenario 1 and 2 above with everything being hosted on VMware datastores?

Well, not really. If you mean NFS datastore, then yes, SMSQL 5.1 + SDW 6.3 + VSC 2.0.1 should work, but a) it has nothing to do with LUNs / iSCSI, b) I severely doubt MSCS will be supported (ever )

Regards,
Radek

Re: SMSQL in a VMware VM Scenarios

animesh129 — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 18:38:38 GMT

Hi Radek,

Thanks for yuur response. Appreciate it.

Just wanted to check if iSCSI datastore would work as opposed to NFS datastore in point 3? ( SMSQL + SDW6.3 + VSC2.0.1)

if not, is VMFS support expected?

Thanks