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How to Configure the VMM Database with AlwaysOn Availability Groups

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 SP1 - Virtual Machine Manager, System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager

In System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and in System Center 2012 R2, you can take advantage of AlwaysOn Availability Groups in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 to ensure high availability of the VMM database. However, be sure to review the recommendations for Availability Groups in System Requirements: VMM Database in System Center 2012 and in System Center 2012 SP1, or in the “SQL Server and database” section of Preparing your environment for System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager.

If you have not configured Availability Groups during the initial configuration, you can use the following procedure to perform that configuration.

Perform the following procedure on the SQL Server cluster that hosts the VMM database.

To configure the VMM database with AlwaysOn Availability Groups

  1. If the VMM database is included in the availability group, remove it. You can use the Microsoft SQL Management Studio tool to perform this task.

  2. Initiate a failover to the computer that is running SQL Server and on which the VMM database is installed.

  3. On the VMM management server, start the Virtual Machine Manager Setup Wizard. To start the wizard, on your installation media, right-click setup.exe, and then click Run as administrator.

  4. Skip the first five wizard pages, and then on the Database configuration page do as follows:

    1. In the Server name box, type the name of the availability group listener.

    2. Leave Instance name empty.

    3. Select the existing VMM database.

    4. Complete the setup wizard.

  5. On the secondary node computer in the cluster that is running SQL Server, create a new login with the following characteristics:

    • The login name is identical to the VMM service account name.

    • The login has the user mapping to the VMM database.

    • The login is configured with the database owner credentials.

  6. Initiate a failover to the secondary node computer that is running SQL Server, and verify that you can restart the VMM service (scvmmservice).

  7. Repeat the last two steps for every secondary node in the cluster that is running SQL Server.

  8. If this is a high availability VMM setup, continue to install other high availability VMM nodes.