What is recommended when deploying new application VMs that have a transactional workload?

When deploying new application VMs that have a transactional workload, aggregating multiple virtual disks at the guest OS level is beneficial because it allows for enhanced performance and better management of I/O operations. By adding a minimum of four virtual disks, you can distribute the workload across several disks, which reduces contention and increases throughput. This technique is particularly effective for transactional workloads that require consistent and fast read/write capabilities.

The use of multiple virtual disks helps in managing the I/O patterns more efficiently, especially in scenarios where transactions are high and quick access to data is crucial. It allows the hypervisor to balance the I/O operations better across the available resources, which can lead to improved overall performance of the application. Additionally, such a configuration can help in scalability; as the workload grows, more virtual disks can be added without significant reconfiguration.

Other approaches may focus solely on hardware optimizations, but they may not address the underlying performance needs specific to transactional workloads as effectively as a well-thought-out disk configuration strategy.