vCenter on a VM v/s vCenter directly on hardware?

[chayolle]

Hi,

I don't know if this has already been discussed but I would like to know what are the advantages and disadvantages of each possibility?

I actually have my vCenter Server running on a Win2003 on a VM, with the database installed by default, i.e. on the same VM. What do you recommend in terms of backup for this VM? What will actually happen if this VM has a problem and crash? Will my infrastructure continue working?

I'm asking all this because I installed the vCenter Server on a VM at a client's premises and he would now like to install directly a Win2003 on the physical server and install vCenter with its database on the physical machine. What are the steps that I should do to prevent losing all my configuration that are actually in the VM?

Thanks in advance

LF

VSP | VTSP

[anh]

Hi

You can do different this in terms of backup. You can backup the VM using VCB or something similar, thats what i do. You could also backup the DB on the vCenter server. Its got all the config and performance-stats the vcenter generates. If your vc crashes your ESX-hosts and VMs will keep running. But DRS, HA vmotion and so on will of course not work.

Regards

Anders Hansen

[jasonvines]

If your client has vMotion I would leave it virtual. My client only has essentials plus and I have to clone the vCenter VM to a different host to run updates. That is the only downfall that I see, is losing the functionality of update manager by having vCenter in a VM without vMotion.

[chayolle]

Hi,

Many thanks for your answers. The box running the vCenter VM is actually an ESXi 4, therefore no vMotion...

From what I understand, I should backup the database itself before reinstalling a fresh vCenter Server, and then restore the database back to the new server, and then point the vCenter server to this database, am I right? The process of pointing it to the database is a complex one or quite straight forward? I really don't have a clue of how doing this actually , any documents or knowledge base for this?

VSP | VTSP

[AndreTheGiant]

I don't know if this has already been discussed but I would like to know what are the advantages and disadvantages of each possibility?

Pro: faster to restore, you can use VMware HA to restart VC, VC is jsut an "appliance"

Con: maybe not so scalabe and it use resources from your infrastrastructure.

I actually have my vCenter Server running on a Win2003 on a VM, with the database installed by default, i.e. on the same VM. What do you recommend in terms of backup for this VM?

Each backup solution that work for a VM work also in this case

I'm asking all this because I installed the vCenter Server on a VM at a client's premises and he would now like to install directly a Win2003 on the physical server and install vCenter with its database on the physical machine. What are the steps that I should do to prevent losing all my configuration that are actually in the VM?

See:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/7960893 - VMware Self-Service- Moving the VirtualCenter SQL Database

Andre