Unable to retrieve the objects

[Felicimo]

Hello Community,

I'm currently setting up a vCloud Director with vCenter Chargeback but I'm currently running into issues with Chargeback where whenever I try to view a Hierarchy (the Organisation vDCs hierarchy created automatically or ones created manaually to sync with my vCenter Server) I receive the error: UNABLE TO RETRIEVE THE OBJECTS (a screen shot is attached)

I had a rummage through some of the Chargeback logs and the error log pointed to a potential SQL issue. The key error in the log says:

Caused by: com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerException: Invalid column name 'start_time'.

I have also attached the part of the log relevant to the error.

My setup:

I have a cluster of two vCloud Director cells connected to a single vCenter Server, also connected a vShield Manager instance. I have been able to successfully create the Cloud resources (Provider vDC, Organisation vDC, Network Pools, vApps etc).

I then installed the vCenter Chargeback application on a separate Windows Server 2008 R2 server. The Chargeback installation includes:

• The Load Balancer service
  
• vCenter Chargeback Data Collector
  
• vCloud Director Data Collector
  
• vShield Data Collector
  

***All databases (vCenter Server, vCloud Director and vCenter Chargeback) all reside in a dedicated SQL Server 2008 R2 database.

In addition, I followed the best practice guidelines for the vCenter Chargeback installation taken from the Best Practice and Install PDF documents. They included: creating the custom vCenter role and user for use with vCenter Chargeback, creating a readonly database user to access both the vCenter and vCloud director databases.

Both the vCenter Server and vCloud Director data collector have been successfully provisioned in vCenter Chargeback. I even tried to delete the vCenter Server instance but that also produced the same error!! Any ideas?

Your assistance will be greatly appreciated

[Felicimo]

Sorry..forgot to mention the software versions I'm running:

vCenter Chargeback - 2.0.1

vCloud Director -  1.5.1

vCenter Server - 5.0 Update 1 (Build number 623373)

vShield Manager - 5.0.1

Also, I have another vCenter Chargeback Data Collector running on another server, as suggested by the administration guide.

[Felicimo]

After much toil I seem to have found the answer!

It is in fact an issue with the database. I created the Chargeback database using a simple and basic script akin to the one used to create the vCloud Director database.

I thought I would try and re-create the database using the ‘New Database Wizard’ in SQL Server and keep all defaults, except for the name and the collation. It appears to have done the trick as after installation of Chargeback I can now view all Hierarchies without error. Very strange!! The script I used to create the database has nothing special in it and literally creates a blank database.

Ah well..at least I can put this painful episode behind me and make note of this! Thank you to errr..myself! J