Create ODBC Database Connection in vCenter Server

vCenter server requires database to store its information. There are two methods you can use to configure database in vCenter server. You can use express SQL 2008 instance or separate dedicated database server. In this post, I will show steps to create ODBC database connection in vCenter Server with dedicated SQL server Server 2012.

Create ODBC Database Connection in vCenter Server 

As I have already installed SQL Server 2012 in Server 2012 R2, let’s create some database and ODBC connection. But before that I will create a user account in active directory which will be used to manage vCenter server.

Here, I have created user account called vCenUser which will be administrator for vCenter server. I will use this user account to login to vCenter server and mange vSphere infrastructure.

Now get back to SQL server and create a database. To create a database in SQL server, login to database server, then open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio. Expand the server on the left pane. Right-click Databases and click New Database.

New Database dialog box will open as shown below. On the General tab, type the name of the database. In this case, I have typed vCenDB. Click OK.

We have two option to associate user account to this database. You can either create local user account in SQL server or link the same user account that you created in Active Directory. Here, I will link the same AD user account for this database. To do so, expand Security. Right-click Logins folder and click New Login option.

Here, type the user account. In this case its the domain user account so type, mustbegeek\vCenUser. Under the default database, choose vCenDB from the drop down.

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Select Server Roles on the left pane. Check public and sysadmin server roles.

Now select User Mapping on the left pane. Under Users mapped to this login option check the vCenDB. Similarly, for database role membership for vCenDB option, check db_owner and public. Then click OK.

Now log into vCenter server to create ODBC connection to the database we just created. Open the ODBC Data Source Administrator application. Select System DSN tab and click Add.

A new Create New Data Source dialog box will open. Select SQL Server Native Client 11.0 and click Finish.

Now Create a New Data Source to SQL Server dialog box will open. Here, type name of the ODBC connection, description and server IP address which I have already done as shown below. Then click Next.

Here, choose Integrated Windows authentication. SQl server will verify the authenticity of the login ID using Active Directory so click Next.

Here, change the default database to vCenDB, and click Next.

Review the settings and click Finish.

Now you can test the data source. If there is any issues, then go back fix the problems and repeat the above steps.

This is how you create a ODBC connection. Now you can start installing vCenter server.