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Note: The version of VMware View Composer that i’m using in this tutorial is vmware-viewcomposer-2.0.0-210930.exe. We are using the SQL2005 express instance that was installed with vCenter to create our database.
Requirements: We have downloaded and installed SQL Management Studio Express for SQL 2005.
1. First step in setting up View Composer is to create a new database. Open up SQL Server Management Studio Express. You can see the database that vCenter is using called VIM_VCDB.
2. Right click on the Databases folder and click New Database. The following Window will appear. Type in a name for the View Composer database. I’ve simply typed in ViewComposer. Click Ok and the database will be created.
3. As you can see the new Database titled ViewComposer is now setup and ready to use.
4. Our next step before actually installing View Composer is to setup the System DSN pointing to our new ViewComposer database. Open up ODBC Data Source Administrator which is located in Administrative Tools (Location is for Windows 2008, however if you are running Windows 2003 for your vCenter server you will find ODBC Data Source in Start – Control Panael – ODBC Data Sources).
5. We will be crated a new System DSN so click on the System DSN tab and click Add. Give a name and description to your DSN and select the SQL server you wish to connect to in the syntax of
6. Unless you are using SQL authentication, keep all the authentication default settings on this screen and click Next.
7. Click “Change the default database to:” and select the View Composer database you created in step 2. Keep the rest as default and click Next.
8. Keep all the default settings on this screen and click Finish.
9. You are presented with a summary of all your settings. You can click on Test Data Source to make sure it can establish a successfull connection. Click Ok.
10. Your System DSN for View Composer is now setup. Next we’ll move onto installing View Composer on vCenter.
11. Double click cmware-viewcomposer-2.0.0-210930.exe and the installation wizard will begin. Click Next.
12. Accept the license agreement and click Next.
13. We will accept the default directory location and click Next.
14. Type in the DSN you created earlier in step 10 along with the appropriate SQL access credentials. Click Next.
15. I will accept the default SOAP port for View Composer, however if you need to change it, type in a port that doesn’t conflict with any other program. Click Next.
16. This screen presents you with a basic summary of where View Composer will be installed to. Click Install.
17. If you have your VI client open or any other program that interferes with the View Composer install, the wizard will prompt you to Automatically close them. Click Ok.
18. Installation is complete. Click Finish to close the wizard.
Disclaimer:
All the tutorials included on this site are performed in a lab environment to simulate a real world production scenario. As everything is done to provide the most accurate steps to date, we take no responsibility if you implement any of these steps in a production environment.
Thanks for this 🙂
So step 4 onwards is done on the VC server?
Yes that’s correct cheto06, composer is installed on your vCenter server. However I would recommend having your database on a seperate server unless you are just using the install for testing, in which case sql express is fine on the vcenter server.