Installation guide

vCenter Server is installed, and the settings that you backed up are restored. The SQL Server Express database

is also restored on the new machine. After the installation is complete, vCenter Server is started.

What to do next

If the new vCenter Server machine has a different name than the source machine, update plug-ins and

other solutions that access the vCenter Server system with the name of the new machine. See “Update the

vCenter Server Name for Plug-Ins,” on page 55.

If a license server was installed on the source machine, install the license server on the destination machine

and migrate the licenses. See “Migrate a License Server Installed on the Same Machine as vCenter

Server,” on page 56.

See “After You Upgrade vCenter Server,” on page 57.

Restore the vCenter Server Configuration and Nonbundled Database and Install

vCenter Server on the New Machine

After you use the data migration tool to back up the configuration of a vCenter Server system with a

nonbundled database, you complete the migration to a new machine by using the data migration tool to install

vCenter Server and restore the vCenter Server configuration on the destination machine.

Perform this procedure if you are migrating a vCenter Server that uses a database other than the bundled SQL

Server Express database. The data migration tool restores the database to the new machine and launches the

vCenter Server installer.

If you are migrating a vCenter Server that uses the bundled SQL Server Express database, see “Restore the

vCenter Server Configuration and the Bundled Database and Install vCenter Server on the Destination

Machine,” on page 51.

Prerequisites

Use the data migration tool to back up the VirtualCenter or vCenter Server configuration on machine you

are migrating from. See “Back Up VirtualCenter or vCenter Server Configuration with the Data Migration

Tool,” on page 49

Ensure that the destination vCenter Server machine has access to all other systems that it must connect

to, such as the domain server, Windows Active Directory server with vCenter user accounts, database

server, and license server.

Ensure that Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 is installed on the destination machine.

Ensure that the VIM_SQLEXP or SQLEXP_VIM databases do not exist on the destination machine. These

databases might be left after you uninstall vCenter Server 4.0, 4.1, or 5.0. Installing vCenter Server on a

machine that has either of those databases is not supported. Before running the data migration scripts,

uninstall VIM_SQLEXP or SQLEXP_VIM databases, and any file system directories pertaining to previous

vCenter Server installations. For best results, use a machine on which vCenter Server has never been

installed.

Restart the database before you start the database restore process.

Procedure

1 Copy the datamigration folder from the source machine to the destination machine.

2 Insert the vCenter Server installation media into the DVD-ROM drive on the destination machine, or copy

the installation ISO image to the destination machine.

3 From the Windows command prompt, change to the datamigration folder copied from the source machine

and type install.bat.

4 If the name of the destination machine is different from the name of the source machine, type y to continue.

Chapter 4 Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.0

VMware, Inc. 53