Is BizTalk supported when running under Virtual PC / Virtual Server?

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Since Virtual Server has been released, I got asked the question several times so I figured I'd put the answer here where everybody can find it.  Knowledge Base Article 842301 says something like:

Current released versions of BizTalk (2000, 2002 ,2004) in any flavor (Enterprise, Developer ...) are "best effort support" on virtual machines (Virtual PC and Virtual Server). Any case opened with Microsoft Support will be supported on a best effort basis and you may be asked to reproduce the problem on physical hardware during the course of troubleshooting the issue.

Not supported does not mean that it will not run: it may very well run fine or you may run into subtle issues. Not long ago a Microsoft Technology Specialist attempted to run BizTalk on a three weeks development project. According to him, this is not worth wasting the effort again. They ran into issues and none of them reproduced on real hardware. I am sure we can find individuals who have been running BizTalk on Virtual PC / Virtual Server without any problem so far. It probably depends on what you are doing.

If you feel lucky and want to try it out by yourself, this thread (chosen among many others) discusses some tips that might help you. While running a BizTalk server on a virtual machine for development purposes might be fine, I would definitely advise against running a production server under a virtual machine.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2004
    I'm having no trouble running BizTalk 2004 in Virtual Server 2005 at all. :)
  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2004
    I run Biztalk 2004 under VMWare Workstation without a problem
  • Anonymous
    September 30, 2004
    Martijn / Brian: I'm glad for you and let us hope that it stays that way ...
  • Anonymous
    September 30, 2004
    Hi,

    We have been running a test server with Virtual Server and BizTalk Server 2004, and have experienced no poblems at all.

    /Alan

  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2004
    We do all dev under VPC using BizTalk Et Al