Summary
Microsoft does not certify or validate that third-party products will work correctly with Microsoft SQL Server. Additionally, Microsoft does not provide any warranty, guaranty, or statement of any third-party product's fitness for use with SQL Server. This policy applies to hardware and software products. It is up to the third-party vendor of the product to provide any such warranty, guaranty, or statement of the product's fitness for use.
Microsoft support documents may use the phrase "not supported by Microsoft" with regard to third-party products. This phrase means that the first line of support for such a product should be the third-party product vendor rather than Microsoft. If a third-party product is part of a configuration that is experiencing an issue, and Microsoft SQL Server Support is investigating that issue, the support engineer may ask that the issue be reproduced in a configuration that does not include the third-party product before further investigation will be done.
Microsoft does provide a description of the requirements that SQL Server has for the environment in which it operates. This description includes requirements for the I/O subsystem and for caching systems, as well as other system requirements. SQL Server can operate properly in an environment that meets these system requirements. Microsoft provides this information to support SQL Server transactional semantics. For an example of these requirements, see the following Microsoft Web sites:
Third-party vendors should verify that their products interact with SQL Server and its environment in ways that meet the requirements of SQL Server. Additionally, third-party vendors should verify that SQL Server can operate properly with their products.
More information
For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
304261 Description of support for network database files in SQL Server
For more information about the input and output requirements for the SQL Server database engine, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
967576 Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine Input/Output Requirements
