The latest VM Release 3.3 from Oracle looks to deliver enterprise scale performance enhancements for x86 and SPARC architectures and expand support for both Oracle and non-Oracle workloads.
New release of the Oracle server virtualization platform features deep integration with Oracle's own application-driven architecture and with Microsoft Windows, but will also work with Red Hat or SUSE Linux and support OpenStack. In May Oracle introduced a technology preview of an OpenStack distribution that allows Oracle Linux and Oracle VM users to work with the open source cloud software.
Oracle VM Server for x86 leverages Oracle’s Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3, allowing customers to utilize the same technology powering Oracle Linux and Oracle engineered systems. To enhance network and disk I/O throughput for Microsoft Windows guest OS environments Oracle developed VM PV (paravirtualization) drivers for Windows.
Oracle lists several VM 3.3 enhancements that build enterprise-scale performance and improved flexibility for automation of virtualization management, including:
- A new HTML5 virtual machine console - eliminating the need for a Java virtual machine to be installed.
- VM Manager comes bundled with MySQL Enterprise Edition for automated database backup and integrated tools for database object consistency checking.
- VM Manager provides a fully supported web services API that includes both SOAP and REST interfaces to enable more automation and interoperability.
- Tighter security controls built into VM Manager, including a reduction in the number of required open ports and a certificate-based authentication model.
- Improved SPARC virtualization management and availability, with support for Fibre Channel, iSCSI, ZFS volume and local disk.
"Oracle VM 3.3 continues to refine ease-of-use capabilities, provides more flexibility in network design and delivers a new, intuitive VM console,” said Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president, Linux and Virtualization Engineering, Oracle. “This new release will allow customers to more easily deploy, manage, and maintain enterprise-scale applications across both x86 and SPARC environments in a unified way.”
