Besides following the VMware documentation, the following links were helpful to assist with my setup of VMware vCenter Orchestrator:

My vCenter Orchestrator Installation Notes

This post let me know the appropriate commands to run via SQLCMD to create and set up the database, namely:

CREATE DATABASE VCO;
GO
CREATE LOGIN [VCOUSER] WITH PASSWORD=”vmware”, DEFAULT_DATABASE=[VCO], CHECK_EXPIRATION=OFF, CHECK_POLICY=OFF
GO

USE VCO
GO
EXEC sp_grantdbaccess [VCOUSER]
GO
EXEC sp_addrolemember “db_owner”, [VCOUSER]
GO
EXEC sp_addsrvrolemember [VCOUSER], “sysadmin”
GO

The user is not associated with a trusted SQL Server Connection

Because I wasn’t using windows only authentication for the vCO database connection, I had to enable mixed mode in the registry.

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.2005\MSSQLServer\LoginMode = 2

… and I’m not sure if it’s a bug or a feature, but I was unable to use the vCO configuration web interface unless I connected via “localhost” URLs – using host names / FQDNs meant that I was prompted twice each time I logged on and couldn’t navigate away from the “General” tab.