Hi,
I'm in the process of upgrading from vSphere 4.1 to vSphere 5.0 I have read that the SQL Express 2005 is not supported. Currently the vCenter 4.1 is running under SQL Express 2005. What would be the case of SQL Express 2005 if I'm doing in-place upgrade from vCenter 4.1 to vCenter 5.0 will it be upgraded to Express 2008? Or I have to do the SQL Express upgrade separately, once I'm done I can upgrade the vCenter to 5.0?
Thanks,
Hussain
see if the below article will be helpful
The data migration tool does NOT support upgrading a sqlexpress 2005 db in place, unfortunately.
The process that I worked out in conjunction with vmware support, was this:
1)install the sql management tool, and backup the existing database
2)then install the new vcenter, selecting to have it create a new (obviously, blank) database
3)uninstall vcenter
4)restore the db to the sql 2008express db that was created during the above install
5)re-install vcenter pointing to the existing db
Good luck - this seems hairy scary - but it works and support will help you if needed. Just make sure you have a good backup!
Hi,
I think step 3 and 5 not needed since the new install will create its own new db, and then restoring the existing db over the new db created in SQL 2008. what's the point of uninstalling the new installed vCenter created with new db, then uninstall it and re-attach it to an existing db that restored from SQL 2005? Could you please elaborate a bit?
Thanks,
Hussain
Hi,
I ended up doing the following;
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Hi All,
All the upgrade went fine. I encountered a small issue after uninstalling the SQL 2005 Express completely, and after I install the SQL 2008 R2 and restored the DB, when I attempted to start the service it was giving me error 1000 in the event viewer. Simple solution for this is to uninstall the vCenter, and reinstall it again pointing to the same DB.
After that, I have upgraded to vCenter 5.0 upgrades went fine without any issue.
Thanks,
Hussain
Hi, Here's an update to clarify the above steps.
Once I moved the VIM_VCDB to another Temporary SQL Server, I have pointed the DSN to that SQL Server. I uninstalled the SQL Express 2005 from vCenter, then reboot it and I installed fresh SQL Standard 2008 R2 on the vCenter itself. After that I moved the VIM_VCDB “vCenter DB” to the vCenter VM reconfigured the DSN to point on localhost. The Service of the vCenter stopped in this stage. Hummmm, I was thinking what went wrong, then I have realized that the I have uninstalled the SQL 2005 Express I thought that linked with the VIM_VCDB attributes. I tried a bit with no success. I decided to uninstall the vCenter and reinstall it pointing it to the same DB. Reinstall success.
After all this hassle, I upgraded from vCenter 4.1 to vCenter 5.0 pointing to the same DB.
I think there is no way to upgrade the SQL 2005 since the VIM_VCDB has a relationship attributes it. As I have tried upgrading the SQL Express 2005 to Express 2008 and I failed. I have tried upgrading the SQL 2005 Express to STN 2005, and not success. I have tried upgrading the SQL Express 2005 to SQL 2008 STD R2 with no success.
This because the vCenter install the embedded SQL 2005 as 32bit and the Machine where the vCenter installed it has to be 64bit. Upgrading from SQL Express 2005 32bit VMWare embedded to SQL Express 2008 32bit, not possible because the Machine where the vCenter installed is 64bit. Installing 32bit.exe on 64bit.exe to upgrade a product that already installed, not possible.
That’s why I went with the above configuration steps to get rid of from SQL Express to SQL Standard 2008 R2.
All the best and hope someone else will benefit from it.
Regards,