Punching Clouds

Recently I’ve been getting questions about upgrading the operating system on the server where vCenter server is installed. For the most part, I’ve gathered information from a group of folks who are somewhat confused and misled on this procedure. So far I’ve heard all types of misinformation on what’s needed and what steps are required. I want to particularly address one of those false statements, that you must create a new vCenter database when upgrading to a new version of windows.  I want to make it perfectly clear that you do not have to create a new database. 

Now let me help out a bit by clearing things up and providing some substance.  Upgrading the Windows operating system where vCenter server is installed from an older version of Windows OS (Windows Server 2003) to a newer version (Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 R2), doesn’t require a new vCenter Server database. regardless of what the reason may be for the upgrade (whether it’s based on going from a 32-bit to a 64-bit architecture of the OS or for an increase of management capacity for vCenter). The assumption is not accurate that in order to perform this type of upgrade a new database is required, or even going as far as to thinking that it may even be a best approach is incorrect as well.

The creation of a new vCenter database may be acceptable for environments that intend on getting a fresh start, but definitely not something larger environments consider when planning an upgrade of any sort. A new vCenter Server database is a new virtual infrastructure inventory. That means reconfiguration of the logical architecture, adding, and reconfiguring all of the settings of the virtual infrastructure like:

• Host
• Clusters
• Resource Pool
• Alarms
• Access Permissions
• and more

Upgrading the operating system on which vCenter server is installed is something that can be done without the need of creating a new database, and it can also be done in a couple of different ways. In order to upgrade the Windows operating system you should follow Microsoft’s recommendations, but when doing an in-place upgrade all services related to vCenter should be stopped before proceeding.

vCenter Server Services

Another approach to this upgrade would be to simply install vCenter Server in a newly provision system with the current and desired version of Windows. Now in order to do this effectively perform the following steps before installing vCenter Server:

• Stop vCenter related services in the Windows Services snap-in (services.msc) of the running server
• Create a new System DSN pointing the new server to the database location
• Import the SSL keys from the running server

SSL Keys Location

• Install vCenter Server on the newly provisioned system and DO NOT reinitialized the database
• Copy the SSL certificates to it’s default location on the new system

The vCenter Server SSL directory under Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is located under a hidden directory called ProgramData located in the root drive.

vCenter Server SSL directory under Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2

I hope this helps those of you looking into performing OS upgrades where the vCenter Server is involved. Let me know if there are any questions or issues. Windows Server 2008 R2 is not currently supported by VMware for vCenter 4.0, but Windows Server 2008 is officially supported. : )