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We tested and validated this reference architecture for SQL Server with eight virtual machines (VMs) in these environments:
Each PowerEdge R840 server, which hosts ESXi 6.7, has four 18-core CPUs and 1,536 GB RAM. The VMs use RHEL 7.6 or Windows Server 2016 as the guest operating system that runs a SQL Server 2017 stand-alone database.
In this reference architecture, the management server runs VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), XMS, and the Benchmark Factory benchmarking tool that are deployed in separate VMs.
The storage layer hosts the storage volumes of all 16 databases. For more details about the storage layout for both Windows and RHEL environments, see Storage layer.