Restore Corrupt/not functional vCenter SQL DB

[Alan_ORiordan]

Need advice here:

My Vcenter server DB filled up to the 10GB limit on 14 June. Through an experts-exchange link I have tried to prune then shrink the database. The shrink worked but the Vcenter service still will not start. The consensus is the DB is corrupt.

It I restore application items > SQL items from Veeam and select the relevant restore point 13 June will that do the trick?

What happens to the vcenter infrastructure when the database is restored to a point in the past, will it just re-generate from the hosts upon successful connection?

Should this fail the next step would be an entire VM restore?

Thanks

[Vitaliy S.]

You can restore the entire VM to the point in time where your vCenter Server was functional, should be easier to do.

What happens to the vcenter infrastructure when the database is restored to a point in the past, will it just re-generate from the hosts upon successful connection?

You will lose all changes that occurred after this date. Not sure I fully understand what do you mean by saying "re-generate".

[Alan_ORiordan]

What sort of changes? Just changes to the Vcenter settings not to the VM's themselves. I don't want to give the production hosts\VM's issues by restoring the VM. I don't think any settings changes have been made since the problem.

[Vitaliy S.]

VM changes/configs will remain in-tact, cause this data is stored in the VMX file of the VM. The changes I was referring to are the following - configuration of the cluster, access permissions to the vCenter Server etc.

I don't want to give the production hosts\VM's issues by restoring the VM.

Ok, makes sense. Let us know how the restore process goes.

[Alan_ORiordan]

The machine is restored but it has lost it's domain trust, probably due to the computer account password in AD being different to when the restored VM is from. I can only login as the local administrator at the moment. Shall I disjoin and re-join it to the domain or is there a better way?

[foggy]

I don't see why you should not re-join it to the domain.

[Vitaliy S.]

Re-adding your VM to the domain is the only option to fix trusts.

[Alan_ORiordan]

That's it re-joined I have previously seen the following article and but haven't ever done anything other than disjoin and re-join, I just haven't done it to a vcenter server before:

http://implbits.com/active-directory/20 ... o-fix.html

It seems to have re-joined successfully although there was some error which I didn't catch before the reboot.

NOw I will have to start the process of attempting to shrink the database again as it has already exceed the 10GB limit again in the time I was troubleshooting the loss of trust issue. Even if I restored days before the DB reached it's maximum size it may quickly grow to it's max?

Oh well that's not your issue, Veeam worked as described

[foggy]

I'd recommend to contact VMware for assistance in DB shrink/cleanup. Also, would not hurt to do a fresh backup of the VM prior doing this.

[Vitaliy S.]

Even if I restored days before the DB reached it's maximum size it may quickly grow to it's max?

Yes, that's correct. I would suggest to adjust DB retention policy settings for your vCenter Server installation.

[Alan_ORiordan]

We have an essentials license so VMWare support would have been chargeable per-incident.

I should have followed this VMWare advice in the first place:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... Id=1025914

This did the trick