Installing vCenter/Virtual Center with SQL Server 2005

In this KB, we will show you how to configure VMware's vCenter 2.5 with SQL Server 2005.  vCenter (formally known as Virtual Center) provides the management interface for ESX hosts and clusters.  ESX hosts can be managed without vCenter however many of the enterprise features of VMware are lost without vCenter.  Some of the features available through vCenter include clustering, DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduling), HA (High Availablity), vMotion and much much more!  That said, lets jump right into it and start configuring our first vCenter instance!

vCenter Prerequisite

vCenter can be installed on either physical or virtual machines.  I prefer installation of vCenter on virtual machines for all the obvious benefits that come with virtualization.  However, be aware that should your ESX hosts/cluster crash or have a complete power loss, restoration efforts can be a bit more tricky since some of the enterprise features of VMware will be lost until the vCenter instance is brought back online.

vCenter 2.5 only supports Windows Server 2000/2003/2008 running in 32bit.  So whether you choose a physical or virtual machine to install vCenter on, make sure your OS is 32bit (vCenter will not allow you to install on 64bit platforms.)

A database is also required for vCenter 2.5.  Supported database types include MSDE, Oracle, SQL Server and more.  If you are following along with our KB, we will be using SQL Server 2005.

Note: During the vCenter installation, you will be given the chance to install a SQL Express instance should an enterprise SQL Server instance not be available.  SQL Express has many limitations and is not recommended for larger enterprises.  SQL Express may be adequate for evaluation and small enterprise deployments, but generally recommend against for large production implementations.

The database used for vCenter can be installed on a dedicated host, or the same host depending on the size of your environment.  For scalability, I recommend installing vCenter and SQL Server on separate hosts unless your running a very small environment and know that it will never grow.  The following diagram illustrates a isolated installation where the database server and vCenter are installed on seperate hosts (we will be following this model for our example.)

Finally, vCenter requires the server vCenter to be installed on to be a member of an active directory domain.  vCenter uses active directory credentials for authentication.  By default, the domain administrator account and/or local administrator will be the only users with access to the vCenter console, but additional users and/or groups can be configured post installation.

With that said, lets begin the installation starting with SQL Server...

Comments

Add New Search

Anonymous |04/11/2009 08:06:43 thank you very much, it saved me ton of time. Reply | Quote

Anonymous |04/11/2009 09:47:51 Thanks for this. I stumbled across this from Google and as above was a great help Reply | Quote

Jess |04/12/2009 10:31:19 I wasn't finding a lot of info on vmware's site about SQL Server 2005. Thanks! Reply | Quote

Anonymous |09/12/2009 12:06:02 this is the best document i found. I just don't understand why vmware themself dont have something like that Reply | Quote

Dutchy |28/01/2010 06:39:53 This is indeed a great document. Thanks for taking the time to write this and make it available to the public. Reply | Quote

YOUR A ROCK STAR |02/03/2010 01:03:18 DUDE you should be a publisher, clear, direct, nice screens, XLNT Reply | Quote

Curt  - Question - Configuring VMware vCenter with SQL Ser |02/03/2010 11:14:52 Great job! Will this SQL setup also work with vCenter 4 ? Reply | Quote

Anonymous |08/04/2010 05:14:39 yes i have just installed vCenter4 accoding this tutorial Reply | Quote

Anonymous |03/04/2010 09:40:46 hi, VCenter Server Service will not start, can you help Reply | Quote

fred  - consultant |03/05/2010 04:27:17 Great job, thank you for sharing your knowledges ! Reply | Quote

Dyonisius Visser |21/07/2010 10:14:52 Hi, I;m trying to set up SQL Server 2008 ENterprise for use with Vcenter 4.1, do you have some docs available on that? Thanks. Reply | Quote

Daniel Martinez  - Great vCenter Setup Guide |30/07/2010 10:52:11 Excellent resource. I am going to refer my students to this site. Reply | Quote

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Website:
Title:
UBBCode:	-color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

!joomlacomment 4.0 Copyright (C) 2009 Compojoom.com . All rights reserved."