vCenter

Hi All,

Found out today that my VirtualCenter log file is growing to the stage where I need to look at shrinking it down. Got about 20% free disk space atm so not massivly urgent but I'd like to nip it in the bud now.

I thought about running an SQL Backup/Shrink as I'm currently using SQL 2008 Standard 64bit, with it taking all the default vCenter install options so full recovery model. I've not used SQL2008 much before so did a quick browse of the forums here in case there was anything specific I need to do and I have a question.

Do I need to stop the VirtualCenter service in order to get a backup done via SQL? I wouldn't have though so but I seem to have found a few posts suggesting this?

If so, how would I go about scheduling nightly full SQL backups which will keep my SQL log size down, if I have to stop vCenter each night?

Thanks,

Andy

yes, if your doing maintenance on the vCenter DB, then the vCenter Server Service needs to be stopped.

...but if doing backups, whether preparing for a maintenance event, or daily backups, this is all done on-line.

Cool thats what I was thinking actually.

Didn't make sense that a daily maintainance such as a backup would require vCenter to be stopped as I've never had to stop any other SQL DB for a backup before so thanks for clarifying.

vCenter to be stopped as I've never had to stop any other SQL DB for a backup before so thanks for clarifying.

Backup no, but you said you wanted to SHRINK, that means taking the DB offline.. That you can't do while vCenter is running. If ALL you want to do is backup, that's fine. But shrinking and changing file parameters requires shutting SQL down.

Sorry yeah. Been a while since I had to mess with SQL backups but I thought if I did a full SQL backup on the DB, that would shrink the transaction log down anyway so wouldn't need to perform a shrink then? Sorry if I'm way of base here.

...and i would advise to run in simple mode rather than full recovery as well as proper DB maintenance, such as purging and re-indexing on a regular basis. But, as mentioned, if doing anything other than backups, the instance is required to be down.

Thanks both, points awared.

I have ended up doing a full backup and transaction log backup (DB was 850mb, log was 13.5gb). Once done I stopped the VCenter service, changed the recovery model to simple and then did a Shrink on the database. Took it down to 40mb for the log. Then took another full backup and transaction log (not sure if needed) backup and brought the service back up.

All working fine now. Have also put in a DB maint plan to do full backups (and trans log) each night of the DB, and these are robocopy'd to a server which will dump them to tape.

Thanks for your help again!

Andy