VMware® VirtualCenter database stores metadata on the state of a VMware Infrastructure environment and is a key component of VirtualCenter performance. VirtualCenter 2.5 features a number of enhancements that are aimed at greatly improving the performance and scalability of the VirtualCenter database. This paper presents the performance results of benchmarks we conducted to validate these performance enhancements and to provide best practices information for configuring a VirtualCenter database. The paper also provides information for sizing the server you use to host the VirtualCenter database based on these performance results. Although the new features in VirtualCenter 2.5 benefit users with any of the supported databases, the examples and performance data presented in this study are specific to Microsoft SQL Server and the paper assumes that you have a working knowledge of SQL Server.