Today oracle announced Oracle VM (Data sheet), a server virtualization product. According to what i’ve read it’s based on Xen. This shouldn’t be a big surprise as RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 includes Xen, and Oracle’s Linux is, let’s put this nicely, based on RedHat Enterprise Linux.
The good news is that Oracle is supporting their products in virtualized servers. In the past we’ve had problems getting support for vmware based virtual servers. At least now we have a supported solution, which makes it a lot easier to roll out virtual environments.
The Oracle VM FAQ contains some surprising info. For one, Oracle claims that their virtualization product is three times more efficient than existing x86 server virtualizing products. This means that they’ve been improving Xen, as i thought that vmware had a better performance than Xen.
Oracle VM also supports moving live virtual machine from one physical host to another. I didn’t know Xen could do this, but Xen’s wiki page tells me differently.
More info, and a screenshot of the management console on Rittman’s blog.
Update:
Xen in Oracle Enterprise Linux must be different from Oracle VM, as virtualization is only supported for products running on Oracle VM. Running Oracle RDBMS, Oracle Application Server or any of the other products on Xen in Oracle Enterprise Linux isn’t supported. Weird. Do you think that there is a reason why these products could be supported when running on Oracle Enterprise Linux as a virtualization host?
Btw, the Oracle VM press release confirms that Oracle VM is based on Xen. Which makes you think, what did Citrix buy?
Here’s a screenshot of the Oracle VM manager interface taken from the Data sheet:
Another thing i just noticed: Oracle Application Server is supported on Oracle VM, but Oracle SOA Suite isn’t included in the list of supported software.
Another update
Here’s another good writeup about Oracle VM: Path Shuf on Oracle VM.
November 13th, 2007 at 00:29:16
[...] By Andrej Koelewijn Today oracle announced Oracle VM, a server virtualization product. According to what i’ve read it’s based on Xen. This shouldn’t be a big surprise as RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 includes Xen, and Oracle’s Linux is, let’s put this nicely, … http://www.it-eye.nl/weblog/2007/11/12/oracle-vm/ IT-eye http://www.it-eye.nl/weblog [...]
November 13th, 2007 at 04:31:45
Hi.
Reading the bumf on the net, the Oracle VM runs directly on the hardware without the need for a host operating system, like VMware GSX Server.
When I tried Zen with Fedora it was installed as part of the host Linux install, like VMware Workstation or VMware Server. The Red Hat virtualization demos today ran on top of a host system. It seems like Oracle’s offering is different to the current Zen offering, even if it is based on it.
I guess someone with some Zen experience will jump in and correct me if I’m wrong. In a couple of days it should become available and I’m sure many questions will be answered.
Cheers
Tim…
November 13th, 2007 at 05:25:25
Citrix bought XenSource. XenSource is not Xen. Xen is not Zen, though they sound the same.
Xen is an open source virtualisation hypervisor based on the Linux kernel, originally developed by Cambridge University. It has some command-line tools which allow you to manage Xen.
XenSource sell a management console for managing Xen. which comes with a handly Xen-enabled Linux distribution for ease of installation. They are now owned by Citrix.
Oracle VM is a management console for managing Xen which comes with a handy Xen-enabled Linux distribution for ease of installation. It is owned by Oracle and is a completely different management console to the one sold by Citrix/XenSource.
For the record, SUSE and RedHat both have management interfaces for managing Xen as well.
Zen is something else entirely.
November 13th, 2007 at 05:48:52
hey Tim, are you into meditation or veggietarianism ?
November 13th, 2007 at 08:48:45
@Lizardb0y
Thanks for the info. I hadn’t really looked at Xen, as i’m quite happy with vmware.
The name Xensource is really confusion, it sounds like the source of Xen. Something like an opensource version of a commercial Xen offering, like openoffice and staroffice.
So what you’re saying is that Oracle build their own Management Console for Xen, but the actual virtualization is handled by Xen. That still doesn’t explain why running oracle software on top of oracle vm is supported but running it on Xen isn’t.
@Tim
The fact that Oracle VM runs directy on the hardware, probably doesn’t mean it doesn’t need a host operating system. I think it just means that Oracle VM includes a stripped version of linux.
November 14th, 2007 at 05:19:32
Hi,
Is it possible to learn Oracle VM and try for a job in that without learning any other. I am webdeveloper with 8 years experience. Please reply me.
November 15th, 2007 at 23:59:59
It’s possible to learn anything and try for a job. Good luck.
November 19th, 2007 at 12:01:37
Thanks Andrej Koelewijn, My doubt is do I need to learn something(or any other pre requisit knowledge) else only OracleVM only is enough.
Thanks in advace.
November 19th, 2007 at 12:56:56
I think it would be useful to also have some knowledge about the operating systems you’re going to run on oracle vm, for example oracle enterprise linux.
February 2nd, 2008 at 04:14:34
The fact that Oracle SOA is not supported is a big let down. I was almost hooked!!
July 18th, 2008 at 06:25:15
I wanna knw the installation guidelines for Suse as guest OS on oracle vm.
July 18th, 2008 at 09:56:27
You’re probably best of searching on OTN (http://otn.oracle.com) or the oracle forums.