Moving the VMware vCenter Server 4.x/5.x/6.x SQL database

Products

VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

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

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x
VMware VirtualCenter 2.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.0.x
VMware VirtualCenter 2.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x

Resolution

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: Notes:
- Stopping, starting, or restarting vCenter services (1003895)
- Stopping, starting, or restarting VMware vCenter Server 6.0 services (2109881).
- For vCenter Server 5.0.x, stop the vCenter Inventory Service and VMware vSphere Profile-Driven Storage service.
- For vCenter Server 6.0.x, VMware VirtualCenter Management Webservices has been renamed to vSphere Web Client Service.
Migrate the VCDB and UMDB from the existing SQL instance to the new SQL instance running on the remote server. For more information on migrating databases, see Back Up and Move a Local vCenter Server Database section in vSphere 5.0 Upgrade guide.

Note: For vCenter Server 5.1, you may also need to migrate the vCenter Single Sign-On RSA database. For more information, see Updating the vCenter Single Sign-On server database configuration (2045528).
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, 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:
Update the vcdb.properties file with the new SQL server. If this is not updated, the performance overview charts and the Storage Monitoring Service (SMS) may be affected after migrating the vCenter Server database. For more information, see JDBC URL Formats for the vCenter Server Database section in the vSphere Installation and Setup guide.

The vcdb.properties file is located at:
- For vCenter Server 5.5 and earlier:
  - Windows 2008 – C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter
  - Other Windows versions – C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\
- For vCenter Server 6.0:
  - C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\cfg\vmware-vpx
- For vCenter Server 6.5
  - C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\cfg\vmware-vpx
- For vCenter Server 6.7
  - C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\cfg\vmware-vpx
Start the VMware VirtualCenter Server and VMware Update Manager services.
- Stopping, starting, or restarting vCenter services (1003895)
- Stopping, starting, or restarting VMware vCenter Server 6.0 services (2109881)
For more information, see:

Note: In vCenter Server 5.1 and above, ensure that the Single Sign-On Service is started before starting the VMware VirtualCenter Server service.

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).
Verifying jobs and stored procedures, see Verifying jobs and stored procedures installed in vCenter Server 5.1, 5.5, and 6.0 (2033096).
Errors with ports in use after migrating the database, see Port already in use when installing VMware vCenter Server (4824652) and TCP and UDP Ports required to access vCenter Server, ESXi/ESX hosts, and other network components (1012382).

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

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

Note: The preceding links were correct as of October 9, 2013. If you find a link is broken, provide feedback and a VMware employee will update the link.

Additional Information

For translated versions of this article, see:

Español: Mover la base de datos SQL de vCenter Server (2071586)
Português: Movendo o banco de dados SQL do VMware vCenter Server 4.x/5.x (2092410)
日本語: vCenter Server SQL データベースの移動 (2075895)
简体中文: 移动 vCenter Server SQL 数据库 (2075517)