SQL anywhere and virtualization requirements

[#1]

We develop an application that uses Sql Anywhere 11.0.1 as the database. Database size can be anywhere from 5GB to 25GB. My task has been to come up with specs for the application to run in a virtual environment. I'm not a virtual expert, but I do know there are many different ways to virtualize. We have small, medium and large/enterprise customers that use our application. We have tested extensively on physical hardware and specifically RAID and mulitple SSD drives, so we know what performance can/should be. We have recommended specs built for physical hardware.

I read through many of the posts regarding MS SQL Server regarding virtualization(since I didn't find a lot specifically geared toward SQLanywhere). There are a number of ways to allow access to the DB (through shared storage on SAN, local storage on host machine, or possibly having multiple instances of the DB to share the load). So, my question is it plausible(from an industry standpoint) to not necessarily give VM requirements on our spec sheet, but have some fine print about DB performance "gotcha's" if running in a VM.

thanks for your thoughts

[Former Member]

SQL Anywhere runs just fine in a VM environment, technical this is not a problem.

Where it beginns to become interesting, is when you need good performance under heavy load (Whatever you consider heavy load)

In VM's you can assign CPU/RAM to the virtual instance, just as on a real server, there is no notable difference here, you can use the same scaling guides for the server.

The biggest difference between a real server and a virtual server is always the IO performance for the disks (Sometimes the network too) Since database performance is very IO sensitive, a performant disk IO is required, otherwise your whole database will just be slow.

For example if you can have a dedicated local storage for that VM, they perform almost identical to a real server environment. On the other end of the performance scaling, when you put the image of your VM in a disk file on the host maschine, or even that disk file remotely on a (overloaded) iSCSI system.

André