The VMware Identity Manager service requires an external Microsoft SQL Server database to store and organize server data. Your database administrator must prepare an empty Microsoft SQL Server database and schema before you install VMware Identity Manager.

When you connect to the Microsoft SQL server, you enter the name of the instance you want to connect to and the authentication mode. You can select either Windows Authentication mode and specify the domain\username or SQL Server Authentication mode and specify the local user name and password.

You connect to the external database connection when you run the VMware Identity Manager Setup wizard. You can also go to the Appliance Settings > VA Configuration > Database Connection Setup page to configure the connection to the external database.

You can use Microsoft SQL Server to set up a high availability database environment.