Q: What are the guidelines for sharing databases in VMware vCenter Server 5.0?

A:A well-written set of guidelines for vCenter Server database sharing can be found in VMware's Knowledge Base article "Installing vCenter Server 5.0 best practices." ().Those guidelines read as follows:

Each vCenter Server instance must have its own database. vCenter Server instances cannot share the same database schema. Multiple vCenter Serverdatabases can reside on the same database server, or they can be separated across multiple database servers. For Oracle databases, which have theconcept of schema objects, you can run multiple vCenter Server instances in a single database server if you have a different schema owner for eachvCenter Server instance. You can also use a dedicated Oracle database server for each vCenter Server instance.