Guess every consultant working in EPG segment of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM market had many discussions about the support of virtualized production environment, usually with VMware.
Since a few weeks the situation has changed, in previous version the answer was quite simply: ‘No. it’s not supported in production environment’. The introduction of Hyper-V gave many people hope on the support of virtual production environments.
In November last year Microsoft announced in kb article 944987, the support partners for non-Microsoft virtualization software (Cisco, Novell, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Unisys and VMware).
The next interesting articles was released last August, the 19th to be precisely. This was kb article 957006 and listed the software supported, also Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be found in this list.
It became even more interesting with the following kb article 897615, this one changed the world for us consultants or didn’t it? It basically comes to this, Microsoft gives support on hardware virtualization software by non-Microsoft companies in combination with Microsoft Software, but it will give you support if:
- You need to have Premiere Support Contract
- Microsoft could still ask you to reproduce your issue in a non-virtualization environment
Also take in considerations that:
- No compatibility test will be done by Microsoft, this should be done by the vendor
- No guarantees for performance or reliability are given
So the good news is that virtualization environments are supported, but still some conditions have to be taken in considerations, for you advice your clients to deploy a virtualized production environment.
Of course the expectation is that also with the release of Hyper-V technology of Microsoft it will become common practice. Until now we still at the beginning of the virtual production environment
P.S. Very curious if some of you already have experience with support calls concerning a virtual production environment and how this is solved in daily life, please feel free to leave a comment
Since a few weeks the situation has changed, in previous version the answer was quite simply: ‘No. it’s not supported in production environment’. The introduction of Hyper-V gave many people hope on the support of virtual production environments.
In November last year Microsoft announced in kb article 944987, the support partners for non-Microsoft virtualization software (Cisco, Novell, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Unisys and VMware).
The next interesting articles was released last August, the 19th to be precisely. This was kb article 957006 and listed the software supported, also Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be found in this list.
It became even more interesting with the following kb article 897615, this one changed the world for us consultants or didn’t it? It basically comes to this, Microsoft gives support on hardware virtualization software by non-Microsoft companies in combination with Microsoft Software, but it will give you support if:
- You need to have Premiere Support Contract
- Microsoft could still ask you to reproduce your issue in a non-virtualization environment
Also take in considerations that:
- No compatibility test will be done by Microsoft, this should be done by the vendor
- No guarantees for performance or reliability are given
So the good news is that virtualization environments are supported, but still some conditions have to be taken in considerations, for you advice your clients to deploy a virtualized production environment.
Of course the expectation is that also with the release of Hyper-V technology of Microsoft it will become common practice. Until now we still at the beginning of the virtual production environment
P.S. Very curious if some of you already have experience with support calls concerning a virtual production environment and how this is solved in daily life, please feel free to leave a comment
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