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Upgrading OS of my VMware vCenter vSphere Server

I'm running a simple two ESXi 4.1 host environment with a virtual machine running my vCenter vSphere Server 4 Foundation. My vCenter server is running Windows Server 2008 and I want to move up to Windows Server 2008 R2. I created another VM and installed 2008 R2 on it and its all ready to go. I installed vCenter Server software and my license key.

Now I need to figure out how to move my database over, if that is even necessary. I don't really need any of the performance logs, so if thats all the DB holds then it can go. My vSphere is binded to my Active Directory so users can access it using the vSphere Infrastructure Client.

I was going to follow this document but where it says to backup the SQL database is where i'm really stuck. The vCenter Server software installed the express version of SQL 2005 which doesn't have the SQL Management Studio. So how do I backup the DB? Do I really even need to keep the DB?

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Stelian Stan

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LittleJohn101

ASKER

Thanks for the reply. Is that all the old vcenter holds? Do you know if my custom permissions to specific VM's on my hosts are part of the host and not the vcenter database?

Stelian Stan

In that case you need to move the database on new vcenter. For that you can install SQL Express tools (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8961) install it on the server and then detach the database and attach it on new vcenter.

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

if you do not need any of the performance logs, just remove the hosts from the old vCenter Server, and add the hosts to your new vCenter Server.

LittleJohn101

ASKER

Thanks for the responses. The first guy answered one of my main questions but still left some sub-questions unanswered.

I found out you do lose your custom permissions to VM's as that is part of the vCenter and not the hosts. When you go to remove a host it tells you exactly what will be lost when you proceed.