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System Requirements: VMM Database in System Center 2012 and in System Center 2012 SP1

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

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

This topic provides information about the system requirements for the SQL Server-based database for System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager and for VMM in System Center 2012 SP1.

If you are using Software Defined Networking (SDN) in VMM, all networking information is stored on the VMM database. Because of this, you might want to consider high availability for the VMM database, using the following guidelines:

Database hardware requirements

The following tables provide the minimum and recommended hardware requirements for the System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) database. These requirements are based on the number of hosts that you manage. For better performance, do not store the VMM database files on the disk that is used for the operating system. For SQL Server best practices for placement of data and log files, see Place Data and Log Files on Separate Drives.

Managing up to 150 hosts

Hardware component Minimum Recommended
Processor Pentium 4, 2.8 gigahertz (GHz) Dual-core 64-bit, 2 GHz
RAM 2 gigabytes (GB) 4 GB
Hard disk (on which the operating system is installed) 80 GB 150 GB
Hard disk free space (on which the database is stored) 20 GB 50 GB

Managing more than 150 hosts

Hardware component Minimum Recommended
Processor Dual-core 64-bit, 2 GHz Dual-core 64-bit, 2.8 GHz
RAM 4 GB 8 GB
Hard disk (on which the operating system is installed) 150 GB 200 GB
Hard disk free space (on which the database is stored) 50 GB 75 GB

Supported versions of SQL Server

To host the VMM database, VMM supports the following versions of Microsoft SQL Server software.

SQL Server for System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager Service pack Editions
SQL Server 2008 R2 (64-bit) Service Pack 2 or later Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter
SQL Server 2008 (64-bit) Service Pack 2 or later Standard and Enterprise
SQL Server for VMM in System Center 2012 SP1 Service pack Editions
SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 or later Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter (64-bit)
SQL Server 2012 With or without Service Pack 1 Standard and Enterprise (64-bit)

Additional requirements and information

  • You must use an instance of SQL Server that allows case-insensitive database objects.

  • The name of the computer on which SQL Server runs cannot exceed 15 characters in length.

  • When you install SQL Server, select the Database Engine Services and Management Tools - Complete features.

  • You can perform an in-place upgrade to a supported version of SQL Server (without moving the VMM database). Make sure no jobs are running when you perform the upgrade, or jobs may fail and may need to be restarted manually. For procedures, see the SQL Server documentation, for example, Upgrade to SQL Server 2012.

  • If the VMM management server and the computer on which SQL Server runs are not members of the same Active Directory domain, a two-way trust must exist between the two domains.

  • The SQL Server service must use an account that has permission to access Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS). For example, you can specify the Local System Account, or a domain user account. Do not specify a local user account.