What’s New in Oracle VM 3.2.1

The new features and enhancements in Oracle VM Release 3.2.1 include:

Performance, Scalability and Security

• Support for Oracle VM Server for SPARC: Oracle VM Manager can now be used to discover SPARC servers running Oracle VM Server for SPARC, and perform virtual machine management tasks.
  
• New Dom0 Kernel in Oracle VM Server for x86: The Dom0 kernel in Oracle VM Server for x86 has been updated so that it is now the same Oracle Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel 2 (UEK2) as used in Oracle Linux, for complete binary compatibility with drivers supported in Oracle Linux. Due to the specialized nature of the Oracle VM Dom0 environment (as opposed to the more general purpose Oracle Linux environment) some Linux drivers may not be appropriate to support in the context of Oracle VM, even if the driver is fully compatible with the UEK2 kernel in Oracle Linux. Do not install any additional drivers unless directed to do so by Oracle Support Services.
  

Installation

• MySQL Database Support: MySQL Database is used as the bundled database for the Oracle VM Manager management repository for simple installations. Support for an existing Oracle SE/EE Database is still included within the installer so that you can perform a custom installation to take advantage of your existing infrastructure. Simple installation using the bundled MySQL Database is fully supported within production environments.
  
• Discontinued inclusion of Oracle XE Databases: Oracle VM Manager no longer bundles the Oracle XE database as a backend database. If you are currently running Oracle VM Manager using Oracle XE and you intend to upgrade you must first migrate your database to Oracle SE or Oracle EE.
  
• Oracle VM Server Support Tools: A meta-package is provided on the Oracle VM Server ISO enabling you to install packages to assist with support. These packages are not installed automatically as they are Oracle VM Server does not depend on them. Installation of the meta-package and its dependencies may assist with the resolution of support queries and can be installed at your own discretion. Note that the sudo package was previously installed as a dependency for Oracle VM Server, but that this package has now been made a dependency of the ovs-support-tools meta-package. If you require sudo on your Oracle VM Server installations, you should install the ovs-support-tools meta-package.
  

Improved Usability

• Oracle VM Command Line Interface (CLI): The new Oracle VM Command Line Interface can be used to perform the same functions as the Oracle VM Manager Web Interface, such as managing all your server pools, servers and guests. The CLI commands can be scripted and run in conjunction with the Web Interface, thus bringing more flexibility to help you deploy and manage an Oracle VM environment. The CLI supports public-key authentication, allowing users to write scripts without embedding passwords, to facilitate secure remote login to Oracle VM Manager. The CLI also includes a full audit log for all commands executed using the facility. See the Oracle VM Command Line Interface User’s Guide for information on using the CLI.
  
• Accessibility options: Options to display the UI in a more accessible way for screen readers, improve the contrast, or increase the font size. See Oracle VM Manager user interface Accessibility Features for more information.
  
• Health tab: Monitor the overall health and status of your virtualization environment and view historical statistics such as memory and CPU usage. See Health Tab for information on using the Health tab.
  
• Multi-select of objects: Select one or more objects to perform an action on multiple objects, for example, upgrading multiple Oracle VM Servers in one step, rather than upgrading them individually. See Multi-Select Functionality for information on using the multi-select feature.
  
• Search for objects: In many of the tab management panes and in some of the dialog boxes you can search for objects. This is of particular benefit to large deployments with many objects such as virtual machines or Oracle VM Servers. See Name Filters for information on using the search feature.
  
• Tagging of objects: It is now possible to tag virtual machines, servers and server pool objects within Oracle VM Manager to create logical groupings of items, making it easier to search for objects by tag.
  
• Alphabetized tables and other UI listings: Items listed in tables and other UI listings are now sorted alphabetically within Oracle VM Manager by default, to make it easier to find objects in larger deployments.
  
• Present repository to server pools: In addition to presenting a storage repository to individual Oracle VM Servers, you can now present a repository to all Oracle VM Servers in one or more server pools. See Presenting or Unpresenting a Storage Repository for more information.
  
• OCFS2 timout configuration: An additional attribute has been added to allow you to determine the timout in seconds for a cluster when configuring a clustered server pool within Oracle VM Manager.
  
• NFS refresh servers and access lists for non-uniform exports: For NFS configurations where different server pools are exposed to different exports, it is now possible to configure non-uniform exports and access lists to control how server pool refreshes are performed. For more information on this feature, please see NFS Access Groups for Non-uniform Exports.
  
• Configure multiple iSCSI access hosts: You can now configure multiple access hosts for iSCSI storage devices
  
• Sizes of disks, ISOs and vdisks: Oracle VM Manager now shows the sizes of disks, ISOs and vdisks within the virtual machine edit dialog, to make it easier to select a disk.
  
• Automated backups and easy restore: Oracle VM Manager installations taking advantage of the bundled MySQL Enterprise Edition Database include fully automated database backups and a quick restore tool that can help with easy database restoration.
  
• Serial console access: A serial console java applet has been included within Oracle VM Manager to allow serial console access to virtual machines running on both SPARC and x86 hardware. This facility complements the existing VNC-based console access to virtual machines running on x86 hardware.
  
• Set preferences for recurring jobs: Facilities have been provided within Oracle VM Manager to control the preferences for recurring jobs. These include the ability to enable, disable or set the interval for tasks such as refreshing repositories and file systems; and to control the Yum Update checking task.
  
• Processor Compatibility Groups: Since virtual machines can only be migrated between servers that use compatible processor types, Oracle VM Manager now provides the ability to define Processor Compatibility Groups to enable you to pick which servers a virtual machine can be migrated between.
  
• Configure additional Utility and Virtual Machine roles: New roles are now supported on Oracle VM Servers to control the type of functionality that the server will be responsible for. The Virtual Machine role is required in order for an Oracle VM Server to run a virtual machine. Oracle VM Servers configured with the Utility role are favoured for performing operations such as file cloning, importing of templates, the creation of repositories, and other operations not directly related to running a virtual machine.
  
• Directly import a virtual machine: It is now possible to directly import a virtual machine using Oracle VM Manager, no longer requiring that you first import to a template and then clone.
  
• Virtual machine start policy: You can now specify a start policy for a virtual machine, determining whether to always start the virtual machine on the server on which it has been placed, or to start the virtual machine on the best possible server in the server pool.
  
• Hot-add a VNIC to a virtual machine: It is now possible to add a VNIC directly to a running virtual machine from within Oracle VM Manager.
  
• Send messages to a virtual machine: Facilities have been provided within Oracle VM Manager to send messages directly to a virtual machine in the form of key-value pairs.
  
• NTP configuration: Ensuring that time is synchronized across all servers is important. Oracle VM Manager now provides a facility to bulk configure NTP across all servers.
  

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If you missed the Oracle VM labs in the Virtual Sysadmin Days recently, you can still run through the labs at your own pace. All three labs give you a good immersion of Oracle VM to prepare you for the next step of virtualizing Oracle Applications.

• Lab 1 walks you through deployment of Oracle VM, Oracle VM Manager and plan for an IaaS environment deployment.
  
• Lab 2 introduces you to the power of Oracle VM Templates. By the time you are done, you will have deployed a 2-node RAC cluster.
  
• Lab 3 empowers you with the basics to start a cloud infrastructure deployment, including storage.
  

Latest Release Oracle VM 3.2

Delivers Unified Management and Enhanced Automation Capabilities for x86 Servers and Oracle SPARC Servers

• Oracle announced the general availability of Oracle VM Release 3.2, a key component in Oracle’s desktop to data center virtualization portfolio, providing greater operational efficiency with improved ease-of-use, and more automated processes including full command-line support.
  
• Oracle VM Manager now offers unified virtualization management for Oracle SPARC T-Series Servers running Oracle VM Server for SPARC as well as x86-based servers running Oracle VM Server for x86.
  

Greater Operational Efficiency and Increased Flexibility at a Fraction of the Cost

• Designed for ease of use and rapid deployment, new features of Oracle VM 3.2 include:
  

Broader deployment choices

• In addition to x86 virtualization management, Oracle VM Manager can now discover SPARC servers and create and manage Oracle VM Server for SPARC domains to allow unified and centralized management in mixed data centers, improving operational efficiency.
  
• Oracle VM Manager also includes MySQL Enterprise Edition for use as the management repository at no additional cost. Oracle VM customers can now choose to use Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, Oracle Database Standard Edition or MySQL Enterprise Edition as the Oracle VM Manager repository when deploying in production environments.
  

Greater automation and ease-of-use, for more efficiency in large environments

• Full command-line support enables easy automation: Oracle VM Manager Command Line Interface (CLI) supports the same functions as the Oracle VM Manager browser interface. Common tasks can be scripted and fully automated, saving time and lowering the risk of human error.
  
• Automated Oracle VM Manager back-up: When using MySQL Enterprise Edition as the Oracle VM Manager database, the management repository is automatically backed-up, permitting rapid recovery of the management environment if needed.
  
• Tag objects for faster identification of key groups in large environments: Allows custom tags to be created and used to filter the view of VMs and servers in the user interface (UI), enabling users to quickly identify and act on specific subsets of VMs or servers.
  
• “Multi-select” of objects: Enables users to take action on multiple objects in one step for faster operations in large environments.
  
• At-a-glance health status: A health status tab in the Oracle VM Manager UI offers expanded and summarized health and status reporting on VM statistics such as memory and CPU usage, allowing for rapid identification of issues before they become problems.
  
• Direct import of virtual machines into an Oracle VM Manager environment: Reduces the number of steps required to move VMs into an Oracle VM Manager installation.
  
• Oracle has also delivered Oracle VM Server for SPARC 3.0, providing a range of important new features such as automated secure live migration, power management, and dynamic resource management, enabling best-in-class cloud infrastructure services with the Oracle SPARC T-Series servers.
  
• With Oracle VM Server for SPARC 3.0, users can live migrate Oracle Solaris 10 and Oracle Solaris 11 logical domains simply and securely across differing CPU types, using cpu crypto accelerators, to permit zero downtime cutovers of domains to newer generation environments.
  
• Oracle VM continues be available as a free download with zero license cost and world-class enterprise support.
  

Definitions of Oracle VM

 

Virtualization: Virtualization is the ability to run multiple virtual machines on a single piece of hardware. The hardware runs software that enables you to install multiple operating systems capable of running simultaneously and independently, in their own secure environment, with minimal impact on performance. Each virtual machine has its own virtual CPU, network interfaces, storage, and operating system.

Hypervisor: A hypervisor, also called a virtual machine manager, is a program that allows multiple operating systems to share a single hardware host. Each operating system appears to have the host’s processor and memory, and other resources all to itself. However, the hypervisor is actually controlling the host processor and resources, allocating what is needed to each operating system in turn and making sure that the guest operating systems (called virtual machines) cannot disrupt each other.

Oracle VM Server: A self-contained virtualization environment designed to provide a lightweight, secure, server-based platform for running virtual machines. Oracle VM Server is based on open source technology (Xen hypervisor for example) tailored by Oracle, and includes Oracle VM Agent to communicate with Oracle VM Manager for management of virtual machines. Oracle VM Server is installed on bare metal server hardware.

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