My VMware Cloud Team colleague Max Daneri of VMTS fame was building a vSphere 4.1 environment this week. During the installation of VUM(VMware Update Manager) he ran into an issue with the database connection which I thought would be useful to share with you. After some playing around he found out that apparently VUM requires a 32-bit ODBC DSN. Which was a surprise as VUM requires a 64-bit OS.
Of course we should have read the documentation first as it is stated on page 27 of the VUM Install Guide…
IMPORTANT: Although you can install the Update Manager server only on 64-bit machines, Update Manager is a 32-bit application and requires a 32-bit DSN.
vSphere 4.0 Quick Start Guide
Ofcourse now that begs the question. Does vCenter still require a 32bit DSN?
Robert
vCenter Server 4.1 requires a 64 bit DSN.
Indeed, vCenter requires 64bit as it is a 64 bit app these days.
I was also surpised during the Installation. Another strange thing is that SQL 2008 Standard is not anymore supported: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_compatibility_matrix.pdf
Page 14
Michael, that SQL Server Standard marked as “not supported” must be error in that document, it cannot be that Express Edition is supported but Standard is not.
Hmm, KB article 1022137 implies the opposite:
“Create new DSNs that point to the location of your vCenter Server and Update Manager databases (whether it is remote or local) on the new 64 bit vCenter Server. You must do this manually.
Note: You must use a 64 bit DSN.”
Can you get that fixed?
@Ceri : Just dropped them an email. (but you could also leave a comment on the KB Article)
Allways the same on the whole world.
New technical toy for the guys, tear off the toy wrap and start playing.
After a few days full of problems start reading the manual
I’m just curious how the upgrade of it works. Does it do a fair job of cleaning up the old install? I am thinking about just wiping my vCenter server and starting with a fresh 2008 r2 build now that it is supported.
Dont forget when installing vCenter 4.1 on Server 2008 x64 R2 that you need the SQL Native Client drivers installed!
http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/4/D/44DBDE61-B385-4FC2-A67D-48053B8F9FAD/sqlncli_x64.msi
On page 29 of the VUM Install/Admin PDF it states:
“IMPORTANT Update Manager does not support Windows authentication of the database when the database is located on a different machine because of local system account issues. Make sure that if the Update Manager database is located on a remote machine, the database and the system DSN use SQL
Server authentication.”
I’ve read several blog posts and even Scott Lowe’s vSphere book that says you can change the VUM service from using the local system account to a domain service account (which has appropriate rights to the VUM DB). This enables you to use Windows Authentication against a remote VUM DB (and it works).
BUT – is this supported???
I ended up with a problem when upgrading VUM.
We have a remote SQL for the vCenter DB.
-I made a backup of the vCenter config with the datamigration toolkit. (ignored VUM) therefore scratched my VUM repository
-Reinstalled my server to 64-bit
-Installed with datamigration toolkit and updated the database.
When installing VUM, I also updated the database.
After that I can’t download definitions. I think there’s a problem with having objects in the database but not in the repository.
Here’s my real problem…
I have VC & VUM in the same database(yeah, I know!). If I choose to “overwrite database” in the VUM installation, will everyting in the DB (including VC) be overwritten?
Can’t find anything in the documentation.
Hi All,
I have vSphere 4.0 Standart and I recently formatted the vCenter 4.0 server and installed a fresh installation of Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise.
I’ve succesefully installed vCenter 4.1 but I cannot install VUM 4.1 on the same server because it says that there is something wrong with the SQL Express 32-bit ODBC DSN !
I tried to install VUM 4.1 on another 32-bit machine (WinXP SP3 & WinSever 2003 SP2) and the installation says that VUM 4.1 can be installed only on 64-bit OS.
Now i’m confused … What can I do ???
Please help
Igor:
On your 64-bit server, create a 32-bit ODBC DSN with odbc32.exe under:
C:\Windows\System32\odbcad32.exe
/chris
Igor:
I think the 32-bit ODBC on the x64 system is actually here:
%systemdrive%\Windows\SysWoW64\Odbcad32.exe
How do I create it ?
Sorry for the trouble …
This is what I have in the registry and was able to install on server 2008R2 with SQL2008R2. I’ve named the DSN vCenterUpdateMgr and the database vCenterUpdateManager. Since I tried a hundred different things to get here, I’m not positive how I created this, but expect it was with the odbcad32.exe in either the system32 or, more likely, sysWOW64 directories. You must use the SQL Native driver.
HKLM/Software/Wow6432Node/ODBC/ODBC.INI/ODBC DATA SOURCES
Keys are:
(default) REG-SZ(value not set)
vCenterUpdateMgr REG-SZ SQL Server
HKLM/Software/Wow6432Node/ODBC/ODBC.INI/vCenterUpdateMgr
Keys are:
(default) REG-SZ (value not set)
Database REG-SZ vCenterUpdateManager
Server REG-SZ (local)
Trusted_Connection REG-SZ Yes
Driver REG-SZ C:\Windows\system32\sqlncli10.dll