Oracle VM Reviews

I'm usually working in the public sector or hospitals that have many critical systems, including the SKN information system or some emergency that are medical.

The main program to consider, from an improvement perspective for Oracle VM, is how to extract the existing VM or migrate it to Oracle KVM.

In the roadmap of Oracle, Oracle VM is finished, and this is the last year. Oracle KVM, which is Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager. In fact, I had to suppress my Oracle VM environment for Oracle KVM, which is Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager. I'm a certified partner for Oracle Database. Also, I'm certified in Oracle Exadata.

There are issues with the solution's stability since it crashes.

I have issues with its scalability since one cannot have many VMs. So, it reaches limits at an early rate. Hence, it's very difficult to scale. Also, you have a file system that is not supported. The file system is based on OCFS2, which is an open-source file system that is not very reliable. It is not a problem with Oracle KVM or XFS since you have many file systems, but this is not the case with Oracle VM.

The initial setup for Oracle VM is very difficult. The main problem is the stability and scalability of the solution. The drawbacks are the backup. There are no backup products certified with Oracle VM. This is not a problem with Oracle KVM. Another problem is when you patch your kernel, Xen is in the kernel, and Xen is not very reliable. In fact, you may have some crashes, so it's very difficult to maintain Oracle VM.

Oracle VM follows an annual subscription model. It's not a very expensive product. This is not the price of VMware.

I wouldn't recommend it to others since it is a final and old product. Also, the product is nearing its end.

Overall, I rate the solution a four out of five.

The solution is a suite of products so it depends on the needs of the client. 

Depending on which product specifically is being used for this solution there are different features. If we're running Oracle VM for SPARC, it has line migration capabilities, and performance, and can use hardware virtualization on network cards.

The solution is an outdated Xen-based application. They only perform maintenance support for it. The new version is Oracle Linux Virtualization, which is a re-skinned version of the over stack, basically the same as the one that Red Hat sells. They could harmonize management between their products better.

I have been working with Oracle's Virtualization for ten to fifteen years.

The stability is rock solid. We have a fairly large technical company running the solution on their production database which is used by the production machines to collect information. If the database is down, the production stops. There has not been a stop in the production for over three years.

The cloud appliance is easy to scale because it's built to scale. You just add a new machine into them and then it will automatically boot and install. The other solutions are easy to scale as long as they are set up correctly from the beginning. They require a shared file system, either NFS, the cluster file system, glossary, or something similar to that. That will allow you to scale your storage, and then scale the compute nodes. Basically, install Oracle Linux and a node then point the management to it and say, "This is your new compute node for you."

I have used the solutions customer service plenty of times. In most cases, the support is pretty good. They have knowledgeable people working for them.

Positive

It depends on if you are setting up a simple environment or a more complex one where you have to look at the Fiber Channel storage, high availability, and things like that. If you are looking at setting up a complex multi-site cluster of Oracle VM for SPARC, it is not easy. You have all of the clustering parts, multi-site parts, storage, and networking that come with the setup. It is still easier to set up these systems now compared to back when you had bare-bone systems and had to do everything yourself.

The implementation was done in-house.

The solution as a standalone product can not be purchased. When you purchase the hardware such as Oracle X36, and the support cost for the hardware, you get the support for the operating system and the virtualization stack included. It is part of either operating systemized on the Linux side or over on the slower side. I give the cost a seven out of ten.

I have evaluated several options such as Proxmox, Red Hat, and Overt. They all do the same things but in different ways. They all have similar feature sets. The interfaces have their own quirks. All of the options are fairly equal with some differences.

My personal favorite VM solution is Proxmox. It is a lower-cost solution, easy to install, and I also run it on my home system.

The valuable features are the cost and the convenience of the physical machines, meaning that you can have multiple virtual machines that you can use for many other different tools, not just Hyperion. We work with different Oracle products such as EBS, OBIEE, and Hyperion and they're all integrated so we don't have to have different physical servers located in our datacenter. What you can do is create different virtual machines in the same physical server and use that for any of our products.

For example, we are going to upgrade our Oracle BI product, so that needs to have more servers. What we are thinking to do is to create more VM's in the same physical server instead of buying more physical servers. It's just a matter of creating a new virtual machine, which is not a big task for the administration team. Probably within an hour they're able to build up a new server for us, so it's easy, faster and cheaper that way.

Initially, you did not have an option in Oracle VM to build an image and just restore into a different physical or virtual environment, but now the option is included. That's one thing I thought wasn't there and wanted to have, because we are planning to move our Essbase database server from physical to virtual, and I thought it's not going to be easier because you can't just export the physical server and just import everything into the virtual machine. Now the integration is there. You can export the physical server's configuration, their registries and everything, the databases and then just import them to virtual machines. That's the only lacking feature I thought was with VM, but they have included it. 

It still takes some time and the valuations have to be done by the admin, so it still is taking more time. That's, I think, one of the challenges that we recently had when we were talking to our administration team. The Windows and Linux admins took some time, like a couple of days, to build servers for us, which as far as I think being an IT person, it's a virtual machine. Once you have the image it should be easy enough to import it into the new virtual machine, built up like a snapshot. 

I think they could make the implementation faster. It's still taking some time, which should be eliminated in the future, I think, and it will be because I've seen a lot of improvement already.

If deployment could be more faster, that would good, but right now it's fine. It solved my problem of migrating from physical to virtual, so initially I had to reinstall Essbase and it's a big challenge in the Linux machine.

I haven't seen any big issue with the stability. There have been no issues with instability that I've seen.

It's been able to scale for our needs.

Within one day, we had migrated a physical to virtual server and then we had a database working, and it was like seamless transition. We just changed the alias of that machine to whatever the listing server alias name was, and the application picked up right away.

We implemented it with our in-house team.

I looked into vSphere and Hyper-V, and then decided that we could not go with any other non-Oracle virtual technology. It had to be Oracle VM, so that's one thing I wanted to make sure was that we had Oracle VM as a new server, otherwise Hyperion is not going to be supported on non-Oracle virtual servers.

For us, the biggest thing I think is the compatibility with all the other Oracle products. We have ERP and EPM and all these reporting tools like BI. The most important factor for us is when you talk about the compatibility of all these different products, it has to have compatibility with dependent operating systems, the servers, the database, Internet Explorer browsers, Java, and all those different tools that are integrated in our system.

If we go with any other virtual servers or virtual products, let's say VMware, it is compatible but it's not 100% guaranteed that we'll be supported by Oracle support. Let's say in the future if we have a problem, Oracle support might say we are not able to support because you are using third-party tools. That's the most important factor and advantage over other tools in the market available when we choose to go with Oracle.

We just did the upgrade of our Oracle Hyperion, so one thing I learned is we could not go with any other tool because we have all these Oracle products integrated tightly and we cannot just install them on some other non-Oracle products. I think we are also talking about to move from physical to virtual for one of our Essbase databases. Right now it's on Essbase, which is under Hyperion, on a physical server, so again, just to take advantage of the cost and the recovery and the disaster recovery and all those benefits that virtual machine has to offer.

Prepare for the development time and the allocation of resources. That's the key thing. When you're building an image or a Oracle VM server, how much resources are you allocating? Let's say for example, the storage and buffer memory and the processor speed for each of your instance for that physical server capable of 100 gigabyte of memory, and then you're trying to build 10 servers out of it that are virtual servers. You need to analyze and review, out of those 10 servers, which server needs more resource and more hard space based on your application growth. That is the key thing that I've seen. Some admins don't pay attention when they're building the package. It really depends on the factor of what tool is going to be implemented on what server. How much space and how much processor speed is it going to need?

For example, the Essbase database in Hyperion needs a lot of memory and processing speed. It needs more threads to calculate the data, so for that you need to allocate as much resources as you can as compared to maybe other tools which don't need that much of resources.

Planning to build your package for your client for the virtual machine on the physical server is the key thing.

We are using the virtual machine to host our databases and other applications.

What I like best about this product is that it's free. It helps customers and end-users save money.

I would like to see better orchestration, as it would help in terms of setup. 

Better automation would help in terms of provisioning and configuring new VMs.

Oracle VM should be more feature-rich.

Using this product should come at no charge, regardless of the platform.

We have been using Oracle VM for two or three years. We are a solution provider and this is one of the products that we implement for our clients.

I have not seen any issues with stability.

Scalability has not been a problem. One of our older clients has about 1,000 end-users and one that we are working on now is expected to have about 50,000.

We have support directly from Oracle and we haven't had any issues with it.

I also have experience with VMware. The setup for VMware is a little bit easier.

The initial setup is not as easy as VMware, but over time and with experience, it will become easier.

Oracle VM is free if you are running it on Oracle infrastructure hardware, otherwise, it is subscription-based.

My advice for anybody who is researching this solution is to consider the total cost of ownership. It does not make sense to try and save money on hardware if you are going to have really expensive software. Be sure to look at the entire ecosystem, rather than the itemized cost.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

Oracle VM needs to add a backup feature. 

I have been using the product since 2014. 

I rate the product's stability a nine out of ten. 

I rate Oracle VM's scalability a ten out of ten. 

I have never contacted Oracle support. 

I also use IBM as per project requirements. 

When we installed the product in 2014, its documentation was simple and crystal clear. Now, it is complicated. We have to jump from one page to another. I rate its deployment an eight out of ten. Deployment takes around two hours to complete. 

I managed the deployment myself. 

Oracle VM is not expensive. I rate its pricing a three out of ten. 

The solution is easy to configure once you understand the documentation. I rate it a nine out of ten. 

I found the mobile manager in Oracle VM a wonderful feature, in comparison with the command line interface.

There's room for improvement in terms of productivity in Oracle VM, because I find Nutanix has better productivity.

Oracle VM can have future improvements through the addition of newer features.

I'm also looking forward to a newer product version for Oracle VM, including making it compatible with Kubernetes and other modern technologies.

Oracle VM is so stable, that I find the databases are much better in Oracle Linux and Oracle VM.

Oracle VM is a scalable product.

The technical support from Oracle is wonderful. They provide best in class support, which I experience whenever I talk to their support team.

The initial setup for Oracle VM was easy. It wasn't a complex process.

Oracle VM pricing is expensive, because it runs on the Oracle database, and the Oracle database runs very smoothly on Oracle VM and Oracle Linux, and this can make pricing more expensive.

I was able to evaluate Oracle Solaris Virtualization that only runs on SPARC servers, and only runs on Oracle Solaris.

I'm working with Oracle VM, and I'm an administrator for it.

The customers use Oracle VM in their companies, and they're given ownership, so I'm currently working with other customers on their active assets.

My suggestion to people looking into implementing Oracle VM is that they should choose Oracle Exadata, instead of the Dell server, Lenovo server, or other products, because upgrading those takes a healthy amount of time, and they also have some vulnerability with other vendor products.

This is why I'm suggesting an integrated product like Oracle Exadata, which runs on Oracle Solaris, which runs on Oracle Linux, and it also has a database function, and it's completely integrated, and has built-in networking and record storage.

I would rate Oracle VM a nine out of ten.

I am an Oracle Specialist and manage Oracle databases. Oracle VM is being used in test-based environments, dedicated services. Being a product expert and an engineer, I help customers work with Oracle. I have seen this solution in customer organizations that are in excess of 10,000 users.

The biggest advantage of Oracle VM is that you can separate your clusters to get your licenses agreement in scope.

Oracle VM has a bigger fence next to VMware in size, so when you install or migrate day-to-day services with Oracle-related applications, it will always look better, or be a better fit in an Oracle VM environment.

You will have a faster migration using Oracle VM because it is an Oracle product.

The performance could be better because I need to purchase a lot of CPUs to perform in the workbench.

I have been using Oracle VM for many years.

The scalable of Oracle VM is good if you have a good link.

Technical support at Oracle has been better in the past. Currently, you get first-level support so it takes you a long time to get the correct level of support. 

The initial setup of Oracle VM is as straightforward as it can be taking me 20 minutes.

My customers are all working with enterprise edition licenses with Oracle.

For Oracle-based environments, it is always better to use Oracle software because of the integration. 

I advise people when they are on their first visualization layers to go to Oracle first and see if that is performing. Otherwise, if you go to other virtualization layers your whole cloud stack will be licensed as well on one domain.

When you install Oracle VM in a VMware environment, it can have mismatches with libraries that are not correctly compiled. It is important to have a dedicated service or an Oracle VM to test if it is working and it's not the hypervisor that is causing the concern.

I rate Oracle VM an 8 out of 10.

We primarily use this solution strictly for Oracle licensed products.

The solution has the exact features we need.

The solution lacks a lot of extra key features.

If you do a gap analysis between VMware and Oracle VM, you can't do VM Snapshot. That's one thing you can't do. It's a sort of a snapshot, but it's not really Snapshot technology. It requires that you're running on CFS-2.

There's an overall lack of integration with other software and there is also a lack of integration with backup solutions.

Oracle has stated that they intend to improve the solution. I'm not sure when this will happen, however. It may have been declared end of life, therefore, I can't imagine that they'll actually add to it at this point.

I've been using the solution for a little over three years.

The solution is very stable. I don't recall any bugs or glitches. It's reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze.

The scalability of the solution is pretty good. If an organization needs to expand it, they can do so.

We don't plan to increase our usage, however. We plan to move off it in the near future.

The solution was not necessarily complex. It was very straightforward.

The initial installation was a combination of a hired individual that had had some experience, and ourselves. Mostly it was done by our team getting training as much as we could, due to the fact that they kept on canceling the classes. Mostly we handled the implementation on our own.

We're simply customers. We don't have a business relationship with Oracle.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this product, as we are moving off of it. I would suggest that other organizations go with a KVM-based product. It's my understanding that Oracle will not be continuing with the product, and therefore no more work will be done to add features or improve the product.

Overall, I'd rate the solution six out of ten.