[Beginner’s Guide] How to Check vCenter Database Server

What is vCenter Server database

If you use the type-1 hypervisor VMware ESXi, you must also know about VMware vCenter Server. vCenter Server is the centralized management utility for VMware, allowing you to manage ESXi hosts, multiple virtual machines and other dependent components in vSphere from a single interface.

A vCenter Server instance consist of the following components:

• vSphere Client and vSphere Web Client
• vCenter Server database
• vCenter Single Sign-On (SSO)
• Managed ESXi hosts and the VMs

The vCenter Server database acts as VMware’s storage repository to store and organize server data. In vCenter, dozens of tables store information on resources, clusters, VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler, snapshots, VMware ESX hosts, virtual machines, alarms, performance statistics, tasks and events, and more. This article will show you how to check vCenter database server.

Database type supported by vCenter Server

vCenter Server supports several different database types. Take vCenter Server 6.7 as an example, the supported database types are:

• Embedded PostgreSQL
• Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP3
• Microsoft SQL Server 2014 SP2
• Oracle 11g and Oracle 12c

After you select a supported database type, make sure you understand any special configuration requirements. For example, the bundled PostgreSQL database in vCenter Server 6.7 is suitable for environments with up to 20 hosts and 200 virtual machines. And if you want to use an external database, make sure that you create a 64-bit DSN so that vCenter Server can connect to the Oracle database.

How to check vCenter database server location

If you want to upgrade, uninstall, configure vCenter Server, or just want to check the status of the vCenter Server database, you’d better know where the vCenter Server database is. In general, there are 2 ways of how to check vCenter database server location.

Open vcdb.properties file with Notepad

For VCDB, find the vcdb.properties file on vCenter Server by following the path and open with Notepad, the line after “url=” contains information on connecting to the database:

▶ For vCenter Server 5.5 and earlier:

Windows 2008 – C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter

Other Windows versions – C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\

▶ For vCenter Server 6.0:

C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\cfg\vmware-vpx

▶ For vCenter Server 6.5:

C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\cfg\vmware-vpx

▶ For vCenter Server 6.7:

C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\cfg\vmware-vpx

Browse through the registry

1. Log into vCenter Server using an administrator account, and open the regedit browser by Start > Run.

2. Browse through the registry and locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBC.INI.

3. Choose the database that you are trying to find the location of, and find the string name Server. This will contain the name of the server and the location of the database.

4. Select the entry that has the database you're trying to locate. Now, find the string called Server. This will have the server name along with the database, which contains the database name.

Backup VMware ESXi VMs to protect VM data

vCenter Server is a very convenient official platform for centrally managing ESXi virtual environments and large numbers of VMs on it. However, it does not provide the feature of virtual machine backup. And that makes backup software a commonly accepted choice.

Here I introduce you to a VMware backup software AOMEI Cyber Backup, it enables you to backup multiple VMs in 3 simple steps. And it offers you the following benefits.

✦ Agentless Backup: create complete and independent image-level backup for VMware ESXi and Hyper-V VMs.
✦ Batch VM Backup: batch backup large numbers of VMs managed by vCenter Server, or multiple VMs on a standalone ESXi host.
✦ Multiple Storage Destinations: backup to local drive, or network destinations like Windows share or NAS.
✦ Automated Execution: create backup schedules to automate backups daily, weekly, monthly.

Next, I will show you how to backup multiple VMware ESXi VMs via AOMEI Cyber Backup. You can click the following button to download the 30-day free trial.

3 simple steps to create a VMware ESXi VM backup task

1. Bind Devices: Access to AOMEI Cyber Backup web client, navigate to Source Device > VMware > + Add VMware Device to Add vCenter or Standalone ESXi host. And then click … > Bind Device.

2. Create Backup Task: Navigate to Backup Task > + Create New Task, and then set Task Name, Backup Type, Device, Target, Schedule, and Cleanup.

• Device: batch select large numbers of VMs managed by vCenter Server for centralized backup.

• Target: select to back up to a local path, or to a network path.
• Schedule (optional): perform full, differential, or incremental backup, and automate execution according to the frequency you specified.

• Cleanup (optional): automatically delete the old backup copies that exceed the retention period you specified.

3. Run Backup: Click Start Backup and select Add the schedule and start backup now, or Add the schedule only.

Created backup tasks will be listed and monitored separately, for restoring, progress checking and schedule changing.

When restoring, you can also restore to new location to create a new VM in the same or another datastore/host directly from the backup, saving the trouble of re-configuring the new VM.

Summary

Each vCenter Server Appliance instance must have its own database, to store the performance data, logs of tasks that were performed, and logs of events that occurred. Before you configure vCenter or migrate VM to another vCenter, you may want to check the status of your VCDB. In this article, I briefly introduced what is vCenter Server database, and showed how to check vCenter database server. There are several different database types supported by vCenter Server, from which you can select the one you familiar, and configure it according to the requirements.