Ensure that your Oracle database meets requirements, that you have the necessary credentials, and that you complete any necessary cleanup or other preparation before upgrading vCenter Server.

Prerequisites

Verify that you have confirmed basic upgrade interoperability before preparing your Oracle database for upgrading vCenter Server. See Database Requirements for vCenter Server on Windows.

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

To set database permissions correctly, see Database Permission Requirements for vCenter Server

Procedure

  1. Verify that your database meets the upgrade requirements. If necessary, upgrade the database to a supported version.
  2. If your database server is not supported by vCenter Server, perform a database upgrade to a supported version or import your database into a supported version.
  3. If your existing database is Oracle, and you want to upgrade to a newly supported Oracle database, such as Oracle 11g, upgrade your Oracle database before upgrading vCenter Server.
    You do not need to perform a fresh installation of vCenter Server if your existing database is Oracle.
    For example, you can upgrade your existing Oracle 9i database to Oracle 11g or Oracle 12c and upgrade vCenter Server 6.0 to vCenter Server 6.7.
  4. Verify that passwords are current and not set to expire soon.
  5. Ensure that you have login credentials, the database name, and the database server name that the vCenter Server database is to use.
    Look in the ODBC system for the connection name of the database source name for the vCenter Server database.
  6. Use the Oracle SERVICE_NAME instead of SID to verify that your Oracle database instance is available.
    • Log in to the database server to read from the alert log: $ORACLE_BASE/diag//rdbms/$instance_name/$INSTANCE_NAME/trace/alert_$ INSTANCE_NAME.log.
    • Log in to the database server to read from the Oracle Listener status output.
    • If you have the SQL*Plus client installed, you can use tnsping for the vCenter Database instance. If the tnsping command does not work the first time, retry it after waiting a few minutes. If retrying does not work, restart the vCenter Database instance on the Oracle server and then retry tnsping to ensure it is available.
  7. Verify that the JDBC driver file is included in the CLASSPATH variable.
  8. Verify that permissions are set correctly.
  9. Either assign the DBA role or grant the required permissions to the user.
  10. Make a full backup of the vCenter Server database.

Results

Your database is prepared for the vCenter Server upgrade.

What to do next

After the upgrade is complete, you can optionally remove the following permissions from the user profile: create any sequence and create any table.

By default, the RESOURCE role has the CREATE PROCEDURE, CREATE TABLE, and CREATE SEQUENCE privileges assigned. If the RESOURCE role lacks these privileges, grant them to the vCenter Server database user.