Yes, two pieces of our farm (Index and WFE) are running on MS Virtual Server and
they both work splendidly (SQL is on a physical monster cluster). Granted, they
aren't quite getting pounded yet, but they are in Production, their speed is
very good and they take up far less physical space, energy, etc. They're easier
to manage, administer and monitor, too.

I have worked with MS folks very closely for quite some time and they have seen
several customers using virtual technologies to host the MOSS servers.

Technically Microsoft only supports virtualization of SharePoint using
their own Virtual Server product. I have seen some companies that have
done it successfully on VMWare, but Microsoft will not officially
support such installations. If you are a big enough customer you would
probably get support anyway, but I don't normally recommend it since it
is an unsupported platform.

Sorry I'm just now getting caught up on the list here.

We are using VMware in production  on SharePoint and the SP Database
server. I have both MOSS and 2003 running. It has been very stable! It
is correct that MS does not support this environment, but I have heard
rumors that it will be in the future. (Please note...that was just a
rumor)

It's less than a rumor, it's wishful thinking. It's unlikely Microsoft
will ever fully support software running under a 3rd party
virtualization solution, and certainly not anytime soon.

Well, it COULD be more than a rumour

Here's what Microsoft have to say

Their official current third party virtualisation policy is at

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897615/

However, looking to the future they say

"Consistent with software industry practice, Microsoft doesn't provide general
product support for any third-party software. However, as virtualization
software matures and the industry adoption goes beyond today's 4% penetration,
we recognize that new support models are needed. Customers have told us that
they want a consistent support experience across their physical and virtual
computing systems. Microsoft offers a progressive technical support policy
covering the Microsoft virtualization software, the Windows OS and most
Microsoft applications. And Microsoft is working with the industry to define
such a model so that customers receive a consistent technical support experience
for their computing systems, be it physical or virtual."

So .... maybe in the future .... but probably not the foreseeable future

You can read the full article at

www.windowsitpro.com/.../97153.html

This only talks about defining a consistent support model across the
industry, not what that model might be.

I know - the main point was they're saying that as virtualisation becomes more
widespread they will have to look at supporting virtualised environments but
until it is more widespread then they wont

> equivalent virtualisation systems? I believe it is not something that
> Microsoft recommends but I'm not sure why not so perhaps that is no
> longer the case.

MS will not officially support your farm in a virtualized environment
unless you are using MS's own server virtualization products.

However, AFAICT, most system admins prefer VMWare's product instead.

So, that's what we're using. So far MS has supported us (well, ATTEMPTED
it, not to thrilled by their MOSS support thus far) without incident.

It appears that MS will do everything they can to support your product,
but at some point, they may insist that you replicate the issue in an
environment that is NOT VMware'd, so just keep that in mind. Or at least
hide any indication that it's VMware'd when showing/talking to MS.

The level of support you get in scenario depends entirely on what sort
of licensing agreement you have. Some get "commercially reasonable",
some "best effort", some none at all. Since support is officially not
provided, don't assume that just because someone else posting here got
it you will...

And don't assume getting support = Microsoft actually resolving the
issue for you. (Don't get me started on that one.

...and in the non-Microsoft virtualization case, if the problem is
determined to only happen when virtual that will be the end of the
conversation regardless...

Has anyone ran 2 load-balanced front-ends in a virtual envrionment with
success? In a prod environment...

I'm getting ready to supplement my single physical node with a virtual
node. I'm still a month or more off from completing this.

I have had clients who are running this successfully. However, as Bryan
pointed out unless you are using Microsoft Virtual Server this is a
totally unsupported environment that technically voids your support
agreement.

Yes, we use virtual machines for our entire farm(s) and also use
Windows NLB. We recently discovered that we need individual clusters
for each of our web applications (which also need their own IP
addresses).