Migrate View Composer with an Existing Database

When you migrate View Composer to another physical or virtual machine, if you intend to preserve your current linked-clone virtual machines, the new VMware Horizon View Composer service must continue to use the existing View Composer database.

Follow the steps in this procedure when you migrate View Composer in any of the following directions:

• From a vCenter Server machine to a standalone machine
• From a standalone machine to a vCenter Server machine
• From a standalone machine to another standalone machine
• From a vCenter Server machine to another vCenter Server machine

When you migrate the VMware Horizon View Composer service, you can also migrate the View Composer database to a new location. For example, you might need to migrate the View Composer database if the current database is located on a vCenter Server machine that you are migrating as well.

When you install the VMware Horizon View Composer service on the new machine, you must configure the service to connect to the View Composer database.

Prerequisites

• Familiarize yourself with the View Composer migration requirements. See Guidelines for Migrating View Composer.
• Familiarize yourself with the steps for migrating the RSA key container to the new VMware Horizon View Composer service. See Prepare a Microsoft .NET Framework for Migrating RSA Keys and Migrate the RSA Key Container to the New View Composer Service.
• Familiarize yourself with installing the VMware Horizon View Composer service in the Horizon 7 Installation document.
• Familiarize yourself with configuring an TLS certificate for View Composer in the Horizon 7 Installation document.
• Familiarize yourself with configuring View Composer in Horizon Administrator. See the topics about configuring View Composer settings and View Composer domains in the Horizon 7 Administration document.
• As best practice, verify that the source and destination machines that you use for migrating View Composer are identical and share the same administrator credentials. When you migrate View Composer from a standalone machine to a vCenter Server machine that already has View Composer installed, configuring View Composer might fail if the credentials used on the two machines are different.

Procedure

1. Disable virtual machine provisioning in the vCenter Server instance that is associated with the VMware Horizon View Composer service.
   1. In Horizon Administrator, select View Configuration > Servers.
   2. On the vCenter Servers tab, select the vCenter Server instance and click Disable Provisioning.
2. (Optional) Migrate the View Composer database to a new location.
   If you need to take this step, consult your database administrator for migration instructions.
3. Uninstall the VMware Horizon View Composer service from the current machine.
4. Migrate the RSA key container to the new machine.
5. Install the VMware Horizon View Composer service on the new machine.
   During the installation, specify the DSN of the database that was used by the original VMware Horizon View Composer service. Also specify the domain administrator user name and password that were provided for the ODBC data source for that database.

   If you migrated the database, the DSN and data source information must point to the new location of the database. Whether or not you migrated the database, the new VMware Horizon View Composer service must have access to the original database information about the linked clones.

6. Configure an SSL server certificate for View Composer on the new machine.
   You might be able to copy the certificate that was installed for View Composer on the original machine, or you can install a new certificate.
7. In Horizon Administrator, configure the new View Composer settings.
   1. In Horizon Administrator, select View Configuration > Servers.
   2. On the vCenter Servers tab, select the vCenter Server instance that is associated with this View Composer service and click Edit.
   3. In the View Composer Server Settings pane, click Edit and provide the new View Composer settings.
      If you are installing View Composer with vCenter Server on the new machine, select View Composer co-installed with the vCenter Server.

      If you are installing View Composer on a standalone machine, select Standalone View Composer Server and provide the FQDN of the View Composer machine and the user name and password of the View Composer user.

   4. In the Domains pane, click Verify Server Information and add or edit the View Composer domains as needed.
   5. Click OK.