Dr. Dobb's | Oracle VM Launched

Oracle VM Launched

Server virtualization software supports both Oracle and nonOracle apps

November 15, 2007
URL:http://www.drdobbs.com/open-source/oracle-vm-launched/203100799

This week, Oracle announced the launch of Oracle VM server virtualization software that supports both Oracle and nonOracle applications.

Oracle VM consists of open-source server software and an integrated web-browser-based management console for creating and managing virtual server pools running on x86- and x86-64-based systems. In addition to being certified for Oracle products such as Oracle Database and Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle VM also offers support for Linux and Windows.

Oracle claims that Oracle VM offers scalable, low-cost server virtualization that is up to three times more efficient than existing products from other vendors. Oracle VM extends the company's support for grid computing by providing the ability to virtualize within as well as across servers. Oracle's grid-computing-based solutions together with Oracle VM combine the benefits of server clustering and server virtualization technologies to deliver integrated clustering, and are capable of virtualizing all infrastructure resources in an enterprise, as a well as data and applications, providing a complete virtualization solution for a data center.

Oracle VM is based on the open-source Xen hypervisor technology and is available for free download at http://www.oracle.com/virtualization.

Oracle's Chief Corporate Architect, Edward Screven, said, "With Oracle VM, customers can respond more rapidly to business changes, increase ROI, and reduce lifetime total cost of ownership. Oracle VM brings enterprise-class support and backing to server virtualization, giving customers the confidence to deploy virtualized solutions."

According to John Humprheys, vice-president of Enterprise Virtualization at IDC, "Enterprises of all sizes are increasingly embracing virtualization to consolidate resources, better leverage commodity hardware, and further reduce computing costs...Products like Oracle VM can be excellent tools that enable IT to increase their server utilization, and dramatically reduce complexity and overall total cost of ownership."

Pricing for enterprise-class support for Oracle VM is based on a per-system scale, with support for a system with up to two CPUs priced at $499 per year per system, and a system with unlimited CPUs priced at $999 per year per system.