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Moving the vCenter Server SQL database

Details

This article describes how to relocate the SQL database that is used by VirtualCenter/vCenter Server.

Solution

To move SQL Server databases used by vCenter Server to a new location:

Stop the VMware VirtualCenter Server and VMware Update Manager services. For more information, see Stopping, starting, or restarting vCenter services (1003895).
If the vCenter Server database is on the vCenter Server machine, migrate the database according to Microsoft Knowledge Base article 224071.
If migrating a vCenter Server 4.x local database, you may also need to migrate the ADAM database. For more information, see Manually backing up and restoring the vCenter Server 4.x ADAM instance data (1029864).
Note the credentials and server that vCenter Server uses to connect to the database. Update the DSN as necessary to the migrated database. For more information on this, see vCenter Server installation fails with ODBC and DNS errors (1003928).
Recreate SQL Agent rollup jobs. Detaching, attaching, importing, and restoring a database to a newer version of SQL Server does not automatically recreate these jobs. For more information, see Updating rollup jobs after the error: Performance data is currently not available for this entity (1004382).

Note: SQL Server Agent is not available in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express.
Start the VMware VirtualCenter Server and VMware Update Manager services. For more information, see Stopping, starting, or restarting vCenter services (1003895).

Note: In some instances it may necessary to update the vcdb.properties file with the new SQL server if the SQL DB name is referenced here. If this is not updated, the performance overview charts may be affected after migrating the vCenter Server Database. The vcdb.properties file is located at:

C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter for Windows 2008

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\ for all other versions

For more information on:

Database server compatibility, see the Compatibility Matrix.
Moving VirtualCenter to a new server, see Migrating VirtualCenter to a different Server (5850444).

When moving a SQL database from one server to another, you must follow all recommendations and steps provided by the third party vendor. For more information on:

Attaching and detaching a database for Microsoft SQL Server, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 224071.
Using the Copy Database Wizard in SQL Server 2000, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 274463.
Syntax or best practices, engage the third party vendor's documentation or support.
For further information on moving SQL Server 2008 R2, see the MSDN article on Moving Database Files.

Note: The preceding links were correct as of June 28, 2011. If you find a link is broken, provide feedback and a VMware employee will update the link.

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