Oracle releases paravirtualized drivers for Windows guests

Oracle virtualization plans are, well, still in motion and unknown at this point — at least as far as I know.  What I do know is that things at Oracle are no longer quiet when it comes to virtualization.  And the company is going through a few changes right now.

The acquisition of Virtual Iron has caused quite a stir for any number of reasons.  And I’m still waiting to see how the whole technology integration issue plays out.  Oracle’s executive vice president of product development, Charles Rozwat, just announced that he is going on a one-year leave of absence.  How this affects product strategy, development, and delivery of Oracle’s software product portfolio is one question, and if it has any mark on their virtualization plans would be another.  The company is also trying to close an acquisition of Sun Microsystems, which also has its own virtualization product line with overlapping technologies.  And it looks like the U.S. Justice Department may be taking a longer look at this one, extending the acquisition out longer than Oracle had hoped or expected.

[ Keep up with the latest virtualization news with InfoWorld’s virtualization newsletter and visit the InfoWorld Virtualization Topic Center for news, blogs, essentials, and information about InfoWorld virtualization events. ]

Once the dust settles, I expect to see a master plan come out of Oracle around their three different virtualization platforms: Oracle VM, Virtual Iron, and Sun xVM Server.  Until that time, Oracle is slowly moving forward with its own virtualization offerings.  The company just announced the release of Windows paravirtualized (PV) drivers for Oracle VM 2.1.5.  These PV drivers are said to boost network throughput and provide higher disk I/O when installed on Microsoft Windows guests running on Oracle VM.

The PV drivers are being made available for 32- and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, and Server 2008.

But take note: While the PV drivers will increase I/O performance, it also has some negative side effects that you need to be aware of before making the decision to install them.  Some of these known limitations include the following:

• Live migration is no longer supported for those guests
• Save and Restore features are no longer available
• Guests will be limited to running a maximum of 8 vCPUs

Other limitations and workarounds can be found in the Oracle VM Windows Paravirtual Drivers Installation Guide.  And you can download the software for free from Oracle E-Delivery.