What’s in vCenter Database

The vCenter database mainly consists of alarm/event data, HA/DRS data, ESX host information, task/scheduled tasks and VM information. All ESXi server and VM configuration data is stored on each ESXi server and is simply read and displayed by vCenter. You can also use the vSphere Client to connect directly to the ESXi servers without vCenter and modify the same configuration data. Once you add the ESXi host back into vCenter it reads all the configuration info from that host. The database is not critical to the operation of ESXi servers or their virtual machines, they would continue to function normally if vCenter or it’s database were unavailable (Except for DRS and vMotion which would not work). If the database were to crash and a new one created you could add your ESXi servers back in and it would repopulate the configuration information. The only data unique to the database is performance statistics, alarms, events, tasks, resource pools and custom attributes.