Ensure that you have the necessary credentials, and that you complete any necessary cleanup or other preparation before migrating your Microsoft SQL Server database on Windows to an embedded PostgreSQL database appliance.

Important: You cannot use Integrate Windows for your authentication method if the vCenter Server service is running under the Microsoft Windows built-in system account.

Prerequisites

Verify that you have backed up your database. For information about backing up the vCenter Server database, see the Microsoft SQL Server documentation.

Procedure

1. Verify that passwords are current and not set to expire soon.
2. Verify that JDK 1.6 or later is installed on the vCenter Server machine.
3. Verify that the sqljdbc4.jar file is added to the CLASSPATH variable on the machine where vCenter Server Appliance is to be migrated.
   If the sqljdbc4.jar file is not installed on your system, the vCenter Server Appliance installer installs it.
4. Verify that your system database source name is using the Microsoft SQL Server Native Client 10 or 11 driver.
5. For vCenter Server 5.5, run the cleanup script.
   1. Locate the cleanup_orphaned_data_MSSQL.sql script in the ISO image and copy it to a location accessible by the Microsoft SQL server.
   2. Log in to your database.
      • For Microsoft SQL Server Express, open a command prompt.
      • For Microsoft SQL Server, log in to a Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio session as the vCenter Server database user.
   3. Run the cleanup script.
      For Microsoft SQL Server Express, run: sqlcmd -E -S localhost\VIM_SQLEXP -d VIM_VCDB -i path/cleanup_orphaned_data_MSSQL.sql
      For Microsoft SQL Server: run the cleanup_orphaned_data_MSSQL.sql contents.
      Make sure that you are connected to the database used by vCenter Server.

   The cleanup script cleans any unnecessary data in your vCenter Server database.

6. Make a full backup of the vCenter Server database.

Results

Your database is prepared for the vCenter Server migration to vCenter Server Appliance.