Knowledge Base

The VMware Knowledge Base provides support solutions, error messages and troubleshooting guides
 
Search the VMware Knowledge Base (KB)   View by Article ID
 

Migrating the vCenter Server database from SQL Express 2005 to SQL Server 2008 (1028601)

Purpose

This article provides the steps to migrate a vCenter Server database from SQL Express 2005 to SQL Server 2008.

Note: You may need to migrate from SQL Express to SQL Server if you're close to, or exceeding one or all of the following maximums: 5 hosts, 50 virtual machines, or 4GB database size.

Resolution

To migrate the vCenter Server database from SQL Express 2005 to SQL Server 2008:
 
Note: Ensure that you are using the dbo schema and not custom schemas in your vCenter database. For more information, see Upgrading vCenter Server to a newer version fails with multiple schema errors (1011386).
  1. Stop the VirtualCenter Server service. For more information, see Stopping, starting, or restarting VirtualCenter services (1003895).
  2. Take a complete backup of the vCenter database. Do not skip this step.
  3. Stop the vCenter database on SQL Express 2005.
  4. Copy the backed up database to the SQL Server 2008 host.
  5. Create a new database on SQL Server 2008.
  6. Restore the backed up SQL Express 2005 vCenter database to the newly created database. To ensure a proper restore, go to Options and click Overwrite existing database with replace.

    Notes:
    • The instructions above also apply when SQL Server 2008 is installed locally on the vCenter server. SQL Express 2005 is upgrade to SQL Server 2008 after you have created the new 2008 database and restored the SQL Express 2005 database to the SQL 2008 Server.
    • You must remove and recreate the System DSN so that it uses the SQL Native Client 10.0 driver, which you can download from here.

      The preceding link was correct as of December 07, 2012. If you find the link is broken, provide feedback and a VMware employee will update the link.
    • Ensure the DSN connects to the newly created database on SQL 2008 Server. For vCenter Server 4.1 and later, ensure a 64-bit DSN is created for the ODBC connection.

  7. Configure the vCenter account that connects to the database as the dbo user of the MSDB system database. For more information on database requirements, see:
  8. Uninstall vCenter Server.
  9. Reboot the vCenter Server host.
  10. Install vCenter Server.
  11. In the installation wizard, select the newly created DSN that connects to your SQL 2008 database and select the Do not overwrite, leave my existing database in place option.
  12. Ensure that the authentication type used in SQL 2008 is the same as that used on SQL Express 2005.
  13. Reset the permissions of the vCenter account that connects to the database as the dbo user of the MSDB system database.

Note: This procedure also applies when SQL Express is upgraded to SQL Server 2005.

See Also

Request a Product Feature

To request a new product feature or to provide feedback on a VMware product, please visit the Request a Product Feature page.

Feedback

  • 46 Ratings

Did this article help you?
This article resolved my issue.
This article did not resolve my issue.
This article helped but additional information was required to resolve my issue.
What can we do to improve this information? (4000 or fewer characters)
  • 46 Ratings
Actions
KB: