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Moving the vCenter Server SQL database (7960893)

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, VMware VirtualCenter Management Webservices and VMware Update Manager services. For more information, see Stopping, starting, or restarting vCenter services (1003895).

Note: For vCenter Server 5.0.x, stop the vCenter Inventory Service and VMware vSphere Profile-Driven Storage service.
Migrate the VCDB and UMDB from the existing SQL instance to the new SQL instance running on the remote server. For information on migrating databases, seeBack Up and Move a Local vCenter Server Database.
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 and 5.0 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 and 2008 Express.

For a complete list of the jobs that should be present, see:
Start the VMware VirtualCenter Server and VMware Update Manager services. For more information, see Stopping, starting, or restarting vCenter services (1003895).

Note: For 5.1, make sure that the Single Sign On Service is started before starting the vCenter Server Service.

Notes: 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 and the Storage Monitoring Service (SMS) 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).
Changing the vCenter Server database user ID and password, see Changing the vCenter Server database user ID and password (1006482).
When moving or relocating the Single Sign-On Server to a new database, see Update vCenter Single Sign On settings after you change the host name or port of the database server (2033516).
Resolving the Update Manager issues after a database migration, see Enabling Update Manager fails with the error: database unavailable or has network problems (1015223).

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.

Update History

02/27/2012 - Added links to KBs 1033588, 1033587, 1029824, and 2006097 02/29/2012 - Added link to KB 1006482 01/15/2012 - Added vCenter Server 5.1 to Products and added link to KB 2033096 03/21/2013 - Added link to article 1015223

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