Rebuilding vCenter

[R_P1]

In my Environment i am running 4 ESX 3.5 Update 4 Servers (Standard License) + Virutal Center 4 on a Windows 2008 Machine .

i want to rebuild my vCenter due to some reason ...things i want to know before rebuilding the vCenters

What is the Impact when i rebuild the vCenter , does my virutal machines , datastore have any impact on the ESX .

What procedure should i follow for rebuilding the vCenter ... i don't have any vmotion, HA , DR features installed .. just 4 ESX Servers connected to the virutal Center and LUN's are presented to the ESX Servers and 3-4 VM's running on those ESX Server . i am running SQL 2008 on the vCenter Server - should i take a database backup and after rebuilding should i restore them ..also i don't have any backup software running in my enviroment ..if i need to take backup of the SQL ... please help me out .. thanks

[a2alpha]

It depends on whether you want to keep any historical or performance data, if not then I would do a complete uninstall of virtual center and then a clean install. During the install it will give the option to re initialise the database to start it off from scratch.

Unistalling vcenter doesn't affect the vms or the esx or datastores, it is just managing them, if you don't use HA etc then it isn't an issue.

If you want the old data, you can use the SQL Server Management Studio (free MS download) and within there you connect to your vCenter database and there is a backup option.

You also want the to backup the SSL certificates from the Docs and Setts\All Users\App Data\VMware\SSL if you are backing up.

Hope this helps,

Dan

[R_P1]

Actually , i am rebuiling the whole server , i will be formating the Windows and reinstalling the virtual center .

I don't need any histrocial data or preformance reports ... what i want is when i re-build this .there should be no impact on my servers and vms or the datastores

As i understand from your reply ,i don't need any data backup nor my vm's or datastore will be affected by this . should i go with this ahead . as my setup is in production

[a2alpha]

I have just completed an upgrade from 3.5 update 2 to vSphere 4.0 for one of vCenter and as it turned out I even needed a new server as the old one didn't meet the min spec.

So I removed all the hosts from the old vCenter, you can check the vm's are still running (point the viclient direct at the hosts).

I then did a clean install of vCenter using the combined installer to install SQL server 2008 and also update manager.

I then created a datacenter and cluster in the new vCenter and add the hosts one by one.

All the hosts and their powered on and powered off machines and templates popped up.

This clients environment is Production and we didn't have any downtime of any of their virtual machines.

(After this I then vMotioned the machines off one host at a time and did a clean install of ESX 4.0, configured it and added it back in then moved on to the next.)

[a2alpha]

Just to clarify, your VMs and ESX hosts don't need vCenter to operate, it just gives you added functionality and manageability.

[R_P1]

Thanks for your help , I hope this works smoothly . As its a live enviroment i am bit scared that's it . Is it better to take back of the vCenter Database and keep or its not required.

[a2alpha]

If you don't need the performance data, then the only additional stuff in the database is things like Datacenter name and Cluster name, as you don't use HA or DRS you won't have any cluster rules or affinity settings so no.

If the new vCenter doesn't work, you can still manage all the hosts with individual connections with the VI Client until you rebuild the vCenter server. Restoring a backup of the database is unecessary for a couple of names.

The only way the new vCenter won't work is if the installation fails which if it is a clean windows install then its unlikely.