I had gone through few days of hands on training for Citrix Xendesktop. The experience of the training is good and it went through technical deep dive. 1 of the key thing we discussed during the training was about the databases requirements to support the Xendesktop and Xenapp infrastructure. Microsoft SQL will be 1 of the key component, and you will require to plan for the high availability architecture to support the production environment.

The best approach may just consider to build an independent Active/Passive or Active/Active SQL cluster to support the infrastructure. A backup for the SQL is always recommended to create recovery point in the event of data corruption. Most data on the SQL databases is the configuration changes, log and etc. Similar to VMWare vCenter Database.

Related posts:

1. XenDesktop License Server Flexibility

Ha …! Ha…! I thought I am the only person disappointed with the fact no Open Source database support. Luckilly I was not so extreme compare to what I have read. Take a look at “Dissappointing Tech preview of the vCenter on Linux” I was still giving some chances hoping VMware will take some serious action. No doubt someone commented they plan to have DB2 included but it is still a “monster” compare to some other light weight databases.

I had just done my vCenter upgrade today from 2.5 Update 3 to update 4. I notice some graphic interfaces changes compare to the previous version. Databases upgrade is required during the installation process. I will suggest to backup the databases related to virtual center before you perform any upgrade to your production environment. If anything goes wrong, you should able to restore your databases immediately. The Databases upgrade is supported with both Microsoft SQL and Oracle.

This GUI interface allow you to retain all the previous data of your virtual center. If you wish to refresh your database, you can choose Drop or Discard from the option above.

Upgrade in progress

Upgrade completed and you should able to see the summarize of the upgrade option.

Beside OS dependancy it also require a database which currently so sad only work with Oracle or MSSQL. During TA3201 session under “Linux Initiatives“ mentioned vCenter will have a Linux appliance version as well as a Cross Platform Client. As follow are some highlight what’s is in the vCenter Linux appliance. The interesting part is there is no mention whether it will support OpenSource databases such as MySQL or PostgreSQL.

I am really interested to know & looking forward for the release.

During the upgrade, there is the SQL script at the backend which trying to upgrade your DB table for your virtual center database and update manager. It does show some error during the upgrade and the screen will dissapear. Once it complete, you will find that your virtual center are still functioning as usual. 2 days later, you will start realize the Virtual center services is not able to be started anymore. Now is the big problem come. If you have backup your DB before the upgrade, you should be good. Or else, you will lose whatever data previously you have. Always backup the DB before any upgrade. A good example, missing template posted by superman previously.

From this issue, I spent a full day to investigate 1 by 1 to troubleshoot and find out the root cause. I had even removed the entire VC and reinstall the previous version, unfortunately, problem is not as easy as I had thought. This doesn’t solve my problem. The last move, I reinitiate the DB for both virtual center and update manager both during the fresh installation, now the environment is back to normal.

I had conclusion the root casue is absolutely cause by the failure upgrade on the SQL during the upgrade installation. I am not very confident to the VMware QA team regarding their upgrade release. They should had tested this all upgrade properly before it release for the public. It could be very risky to the users always.

Some additional tips before you reinstall, you should browse to the folder location which previously store all the patches you had download for your update manager, in case you do not required to re-download again once you reinstall. The patches could be easily more than 4GB, which will take a long time for you to download from the internet again.

Today, I found some solution from VMware sites.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1007196

This had clearly explained the bugs they have for this upgrade. But again, is too late for my case which is already screw up my virtual center. Earlier bird is always risky and excited but again, VMware need to improve their QA and QC for the product release.

Basically setting up a brand new Windows 2003 machine is pretty simple but setup a new Virtual Machine took me 2 days. The most important is my VM template is go missing. The quick solution is search for VM template and register (add to inventory) again.

SSH into my ESX server using putty and search for VM template file with extension “.vmtx”.

[root@malaysiavmesx01 vmfs]# find /vmfs -name *.vmtx
/vmfs/volumes/465eeddb-89b75750-a52d-011aa0289d15/W2K3STD/W2K3STD.vmtx
/vmfs/volumes/465eeda7-2a63d436-724b-011aa0289d15/RHEL5/RHEL5.vmtx

How to register a VM template using CLI:
[root@malaysiavmesx01 vmfs]# /usr/bin/vmware-cmd -s register

In my case, I will register my VM template as example below:
[root@malaysiavmesx01 vmfs]# /usr/bin/vmware-cmd -s register /vmfs/volumes/465eeddb-89b75750-a52d-011aa0289d15/W2K3STD/W2K3STD.vmtx
[root@malaysiavmesx01 vmfs]# /usr/bin/vmware-cmd -s register /vmfs/volumes/465eeda7-2a63d436-724b-011aa0289d15/RHEL5/RHEL5.vmtx

Probably you can check previous article “How to re-register a VM once it had been removed from ESX” posted by Craig for register a VM template using Virtual Center and browse through the data store.

The lesson tell me I MUST backup SQL database and VM template keep in the database.

Open the management studio in SQL 2005 and connect to the SQL server engine that manage the virtual center and update manager DB. right click and select stop the database engine. Follow by that, open you my computer and browse to the folder which contain the DB and DB log for your databse.

The path of the DB folder could look similiar as D:\SQL2005\MSSQL.2\MSSQL\Data

Look for the DB file which end with .mdf and .ldf.

These is the files you need to backup to restore your DB in the future. Copy those files to a safe location. Once you had done that, you can easily continue your virtual center upgrade as require.

You can copy to a network share drive, backup tape or any storage you need. Backup DB is so simple.