Oracle VM templates announced – includes Oracle Database 11g
August 7th, 2008 | 
Author: Earlier this week at LinuxWorld in San Francisco Oracle announced 4 new template virtual machines for it’s own Oracle VM virtualization platform. This initial set of VM appliances includes:
- Oracle Enterprise Linux
- Oracle Database 11g
- Oracle Enterprise Manager
- Siebel CRM version 8
In a Betanews.com article titled Oracle boosts its own Linux with ‘templates’ to aid virtualization
the following additional information was reported:
‘These templates will save time and money for customers in deploying a full software stack by providing pre-configured images of enterprise software, said Monica Kumar, Oracle’s senior director of Linux and open source product marketing, in an interview with BetaNews.”
[omitted]
Oracle also plans additional VM templates, but the company hasn’t decided yet whether VM will use any OS other than Oracle Linux as the underlying virtualization platform, or whether templates will be offered for other OS, Kumar said. “Right now, we’re just focusing on Oracle Enterprise Linux,” BetaNews was told.”
I do find the existence of pre-installed, pre-configured and vendor certified virtual appliances / templates appealing as both
a tremendous time saver and a huge convenience. I can see more and more software companies exploring this type of deployment possibility because of supportability and quality control potential. VMware’s Virtual Appliance Marketplace is a great example of the success of pre-configured VMs although mostly with open source applications.
I’ve also written before about evolving to a multi vendor virtual data center. With this new announcement from Oracle, imagine using Oracle VM to host the Oracle Database 11g server for VirtualCenter running as a VM within a VMware VI3 ESX Cluster.
There was no mention of the availability of the Oracle Templates in the open standard OVF format or any information on the portability of these template VMs between platforms. Maybe someone will try to V2V an oracle template and post about it in the near future?
Personally, I have not used Oracle VM. If any VM /ETC readers have any
experience with this platform please comment on the good or bad of
this free virtualization software. Here’s some general info about Oracle VM from it’s web page:
“Oracle VM is server virtualization software that fully supports both Oracle and non-Oracle applications, and is three times more efficient than other server virtualization products. Backed by Oracle’s world-class support organization, customers now have a single point of enterprise-class support for their entire virtualization environments, including the Linux operating system, Oracle Database, Fusion Middleware, and Application software. These and other Oracle products are certified with Oracle VM, which is available for free download.
Oracle is the only software vendor that combines the benefits of server clustering and server virtualization technologies to deliver integrated clustering, virtualization, storage, and management for Grid Computing. Discover how Oracle On Demand is virtualizing their
infrastructure with Oracle VM. Industry-leading technology partners endorse and support Oracle VM.”
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