I found a great way to backup the vCenter SQL database running on SQL Express. The downside of running vCenter on SQL Express is the lack of the SQL agent. So running a scheduled backup of the SQL database is a bit tricky.

ExpressMaint is a small application set of scripts/stored procedures that enables you to run backup and maintenance jobs from commandline.(You could run the application ExpressMaint as well, but I installed the stored procedure version.)

I installed and configured it by doing the following:

1. I created c:\backups to store my backups
2. I downloaded the ExpressMaint TSQL file.
3. I opened a new cmd.exe (with administrative rights) and installed the Stored Procedure by running:
   sqlcmd -S .\SQLEXP_VIM -i c:\expressmaint.sql
4. I created c:\backups\database to store my database backups
5. I created c:\backups\reports to store my reports
6. I created c:\backups\backupscript.sql (SQL file that contains the backup settings, note that my script performs the backup and rebuilds the indexes on the vCenter database):
   exec expressmaint
@database = 'ALL_USER',
@optype = 'DB',
@backupfldr = 'c:\backups\databases',
@reportfldr = 'c:\backups\reports',
@verify = 1,
@dbretainunit = 'days',
@dbretainval = 5,
@rptretainunit = 'weeks',
@rptretainval = 1,
@report = 1
exec expressmaint
@database = 'VIM_VCDB',
@optype = 'REINDEX',
@reportfldr = 'c:\backups\reports',
@rptretainunit = 'days',
@rptretainval = 1,
@report = 1
7. I created c:\backups\PerformBackup.cmd (this is the batch script that executes the backup):
   sqlcmd -S .\SQLEXP_VIM -i c:\backups\backupscript.sql
8. I schedule c:\backups\PerformBackup.cmd using the ordinary Windows scheduled task manager.