Oracle ups server virtualization ante with Oracle VM 3.1

If VMware has become synonymous with server virtualization and Microsoft continues to make inroads with its Hyper-V platform within the small-business market and Citrix can gain traction for XenServer by leveraging its large XenApp fan base — where does that leave Oracle and its server virtualization platform, Oracle VM?

Ever since Oracle acquired Virtual Iron and Sun xVM back in 2009, the company has been quietly evolving Oracle VM in order to move to the big stage where it could hopefully compete head-on with the Big 3 server virtualization players: Citrix, Microsoft, and VMware. Now Oracle has announced the latest release of its free server virtualization and management solution, Oracle VM Server for x86, Release 3.1. The new version is designed to support rapid application deployment and simplify data center management from applications to disk.

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According to the company, Oracle VM 3.1 offers a new GUI design that is engineered for faster execution of workflow and maximizes ease-of-use and reduces deployment time. It does so by providing quicker access to common tasks with improved wizards and step-by-step instructions. It also offers new capabilities designed to improve storage availability, backup support, and hardware compatibility.

“Making it easier to deploy and manage enterprise applications in the data center and cloud is the driver behind Oracle’s application-driven approach to virtualization,” said Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president of Oracle Linux and virtualization.

Coekaerts added, “Oracle VM 3.1 introduces a number of user interface enhancements designed to improve ease-of-use for administrators, and storage-related features that can increase flexibility when migrating virtual machine storage repositories. With this new release, customers should find it significantly easier to manage their applications and virtual environments and at the same time lower their cost.”

Administrators will be happy to hear that the Oracle VM 3.1 updates provide additional flexibility and broader options in their deployments. The latest release has been updated with Xen hypervisor 4.1.2 and incorporates enhanced paravirtual (PV) drivers that extend support to a much broader range of the latest server and storage hardware on the market. It also provides integration of the latest release of Oracle’s Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel release 2, enabling support for larger server hardware with up to 4TB of memory. And the virtualization implementation has also now been validated as part of the Microsoft Server Virtualization Vendor Program (SVVP) which means Microsoft customers will be able to receive technical support for Windows Servers deployed in Oracle VM environments.

Some of the other notable enhancements that made its way into this release include:

• Hot-add vCPUs. Virtual CPUs can be added on-the-fly to a running virtual machine if the guest operating system supports this function. This capability gives an administrator the power to direct additional resources to a VM when needed without incurring downtime because of a forced reboot.
• Move or clone virtual machines and templates. Moving a VM allows for deployment of the VM to a different repository while preserving all of its configuration parameters. Cloning a VM will create a bootable copy of the VM with a different MAC address so that it can be immediately booted without causing a conflict with the original.

• Automatic creation of multiple virtual machines from a template. Supports the automatic creation of multiple VMs from a single Oracle VM template in one step.
• Move VM storage repositories between server pools. Oracle Cluster File System version 2 (OCFS2) virtual machine storage repositories that are tightly connected to their respective clusters can now be easily removed and then rejoin any cluster. The process of moving a storage repository from one server pool to another is streamlined to facilitate faster and easier disaster recovery and more storage agility.
• Backup/restore access to VM storage repositories. OCFS2 virtual machine storage repositories that are strongly coupled with their respective cluster can now be served as an NFS share to allow easy access to the OCFS2 repository and enable external tools to easily connect and interact with the repository for backup and restore of VMs, assemblies, templates, and ISOs.
• Multipath boot from SAN. Oracle VM Server can be installed to perform boot from multipath SAN without requiring any type of local storage enabling administrators to use their enterprise class storage to install the servers and use diskless servers for easier maintenance and better availability.

At the same time, Oracle also announced three new prebuilt, preconfigured Oracle VM Templates for the Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.3, Oracle PeopleSoft Financials and Supply Chain Management 9.1, and Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c. These templates join the download collection of more than 100 other templates also designed to enable faster application deployment. Oracle VM templates provide an innovative approach to deploying a fully pre-configured software stack (includes both the OS and application) that is fully tested and deemed production ready and certified.

VMware vSphere still dominates as the most popular x86 server virtualization solution on the market, but things could change because some in the industry have expressed a growing concern over what is now being called “hypervisor vendor lock-in.” With alternative hypervisor solutions maturing (often coming in at a much lower price point), organization decision makers have become more interested in finding opportunities to deploy alternative or secondary solutions into their data centers.

Back in November, InfoWorld reported on some significant findings from a survey conducted on behalf of Veeam Software, a third-party multihypervisor backup, disaster recovery, and management solution provider. While the survey validated VMware as being the current ruler of the roost, it also showed that other virtualization platforms were finding their way into the data center. Unfortunately for Oracle, in this particular survey anyway, its percentage of usage was too small to list on its own, and instead was more than likely lumped into the broader classification of “Other” hypervisors. But the good news for Oracle (and other VMware competitors) is that 38 percent of companies questioned in that survey stated they were planning to change the hypervisor platform currently being used for server virtualization workloads for reasons such as cost, issues with the licensing model, and because of an improved feature set and increased maturity of alternative hypervisors on the market.

The question now is can Oracle do the right things needed to capitalize on this possible dissent and in turn woo those organizations over to its platform and away from VMware and other hypervisor challengers who are also trying to maintain or grow their own market share? Technology aside, that remains to be seen.

Is Oracle VM on your radar screen or short list of server virtualization platforms? If your organization is running other Oracle applications, does that come into play for your decision making process?

This article, “Oracle ups the server virtualization ante with Oracle VM 3.1,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in virtualization and cloud computing at InfoWorld.com.