Lock Pages

VMware and SQL and Lock Pages in Memory

With the recent release of the ability for the Lock Pages in Memory setting to be used on SQL Server 2005 and 2008 Standard Edition I see more and more people shooting them selves in the foot with this setting when running under VMware.  I see this as becoming more of an issue now that this switch is available for Standard edition as I would assume that most virtualized SQL Server installations are done using SQL Server Standard Editions.

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SQL Server Standard Edition getting Lock Pages in Memory

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and 2008 Standard edition will be getting the Lock Pages in Memory feature that SQL Server Enterprise Edition has had starting in SQL Server 2005.  This was announced by Bob Ward via the CSS Blog in his post “SQL Server, Locked Pages, and Standard SKU…“.  Per Bob’s post a CU will be released for SQL 2005 SP3 and SQL 2008 SP1 which will allow for a trace flag to be used to turn this feature on.

On behalf of the users I’d like to thank Bob and the rest of the SQL Server team for being able to get this into the product.

On behalf of the developer team, I emplore you to not turn this on for no reason.  Only use this feature once you understand what this feature does and in the correct places.

The Locked Pages flag bascially tells the SQL Server that if it is told to flush RAM to disk to ignore it.  If the setting is enabled then SQL doesn’t flush to disk.  If you find that your SQL Server is flushing to disk, don’t just enable the flag and move on.  I emplore you to contact CSS and figure out why SQL is being told to flush to disk.  This is the only way the bug will be fixed.  Once the issue has been reported to Microsoft and they have the information they need enable the flag until the bug is fixed.  Then install the patch to fix the bug, disable the flag and you’ll be fine.

Because of the fact that this is how bugs are found and fixed I hope that this is a CSS only CU which will require that users contact CSS before they can get the fix.

Denny