vCenter 4 Database, Local or Remote SQL Server

[rgv75]

Hi everyone. We have an ongoing debate here at my work regarding where to put the vCenter4 DB, either on a remote SQL Server or local SQL Server (not Express). First of, internally we decided to perform a fresh install of vCenter4 instead of upgrading our VirtualCenter2.5. And, we are placing this new vCenter Server 4 on a physical server because of an incident we had last year where our entire Data Center had a power outage and having VC2.5 as a VM created issues for us because we had the VC, which managed our VI3, was inside the infrastructure that it was managing. The gist is that now we don’t want to run our Infrastructure Manager in the Infrastructure it’s managing. This is really not my question, but just an overview.

My question is, would you guys put the SQL Server (not Express) locally or on a remote SQL Server? The idea of putting it locally is to have this server be self-contained, so it will not be dependent on other servers if in the event we have another power outage. For remote SQL server, the idea is to alleviate load off this server from any SQL server operations. My colleagues seem to think that the rollup jobs that run on the vCenterDB is not intensive enough to gather so it can be run locally with vCenter. Btw, vCenter Update Manager is a separate server and DB.

So, what would you choose and why?

Thanks for the input.

[vmroyale]

Hello.

My question is, would you guys put the SQL Server (not Express) locally or on a remote SQL Server?

Unfortunately there is no easy answer on this one, and it depends on a variety of factors in your environment. How resilient is your current physical SQL environment? Do you have dedicated/skilled/competent DBAs on staff that you can depend on? How virtualized is your environment, and do you need this self-containment in order to quickly power up other services/servers that the physical environment may have dependencies on? Who will be responsible for the SQL server installed on this dedicated vCenter/SQL server? Do you have the required licenses, or will there be additional costs involved? There are many factors in your environment that will shape this unique decision.

With all that being said, I like the idea of vCenter in a VM with the backend database on a physical SQL Server with redundancy built into the design and competent people managing it.

Good Luck!

[rgv75]

Thanks for your input. One of the reasons for the self-containment is because we are putting majority of our SQL servers as VMs. So, if SQL server is a VM and vCenter is a physical, then vCenter will not function without its corresponding database available, because in the event of a power outage, the VM SQL server will not be available upon power on recovery. We do have DBAs on hand that are skilled on SQL servers. We have 6 ESX hosts with approximately 100 VMs. And yes, the self-containment idea is based on the fact that we need the vCenter operational quickly so it can manage the virtual environments quickly that some other physical servers are dependent on. We do have the option of keeping one SQL server as physical for a few databases, and that's what prompted this thread. Remote or Local? We have enough SQL server licenses available. Like you indicated, I do wish there is an easy answer to this, but your made valid points of consideration.