Oracle VM Reviews

I primarily use this for server virtualization. I also use it for application deployment. 

Oracle has a lot of templates for most of the enterprise application that they sell the market. So, it is easier to deploy those application using one Oracle VM template than actually setting up a server from scratch. Oracle VM is very handy in that a user can easily deploy the templates, pre-configures and does a few customizations within a short time-span.

Oracle VM is a solution that grows with your business. It can easily be scaled up, and it is a great storage platform. 

The Oracle VM template is the most valuable feature. 

I do not think this solution is as stable as other solutions in the market. But, Oracle has really been trying to update the solution with the most recent release, and I find it is less buggy than it had been.

In addition, I think Oracle VM should integrate its own backups rather than relying on other Oracle tools for virtual backups. 

This solution supports up to 254 virtual machine servers. So, this is a huge capability for scalability. Any company can start with whatever it has, and grow as its budget grows. 

Initially, the tech support was horrible. But, over time, the support engineers have improved. I find the tech support extremely helpful recently. They are currently giving very solid support. 

I have prior experience with VMware, Bhyve and FreeNAS. Bhyve and FreeNAS are open-source VM solutions.

It is very simple to setup and deploy. But, it should be noted that a systems architect or systems engineer must be at the helm of the deployment. The setup must be conducted by someone well-versed in Linux. 

Initially, when we setup we had to make sure we had a staff architect that was knowledgeable with storage skills and Linux. Those were our requirements for proper deployment. 

The cost of this solution is cheap. It is one of the reasons we chose Oracle VM. It is truly "pocket- friendly."

In regards to the licensing, Oracle VM is definitely a good choice for a customer that is already using Oracle solutions. 

Nothing is simple about virtualization software products anymore. They are becoming more complex by the day. Now, with the advent of containers, the complexity has increased. Nothing is simple. Users must be dedicated to understand these VM solutions. 

Although not necessarily a feature, but rather a capability of virtualization, is the possibiltles to have high consolidation density and to take new or legacy applications and put them on high-performance computing platforms.

The primary benefit is that it reduced CapEx by getting rid of old hardware and then consolidating them on a defined set of platforms. And while it's pretty well automated and if your IT department is well-versed in virtualization technology, it can reduce OpEx as well.

I think it needs a more simplified way of provisioning external storage networks. Those areas in performance, especially triaging performance at the hypervisor layer, need some improvement.

We've had no issues with deploying it.

It's come a long way. So, by the time you get to v3.3, it's a pretty stable platform. It's much easier to use than the previous versions and I'd say it's at a good place right now.

It scales well. I think a primary use case of this would be in the private cloud appliance, a PCA, which is where it really gets leveraged.

The primary benefit I see is that most of the people who are doing support for Oracle VM come from database and virtualization backgrounds, and they sit together. If you have a problem with a database, since it's virtualized, they'll know exactly how to triage it.

It's been a struggle. Over the years, it's gotten better and better. I think what's helped tremendously is the integration of OVM with PCA, and so all the setup has really been taken out of the hands of the administrator. It's really more of a deployment thing than it is a setup thing. That's helped a lot.

We looked at quite a few vendors and we support different vendors as well, too. We're not a one-vendor shop. We use quite different vendors and it's all-purpose for us. For Oracle-based technology, we use Oracle VM. For non-Oracle stuff, we use VMware.

The first thing I would suggest is that if you have a test environment, the best thing to do is learn. Get certified hardware and then play with it, test it. Make sure you're comfortable with the whole provisioning setup and configuration of it. Then use it on a much more wider scale.

Virtual machines are much cheaper than having physical machines. They are rolling out new machines very quick and fast. It saves time and saves cost, that’s how we feel; and also the systems are more reliable.

Saves time for procuring the new hardware. No more physical space sitting on the data centers.

It's stable. There are still ways you can break the system, but it's very minimal, compared to a physical system.

For real hardware, scalability is challenging. But with virtual, you can scale without affecting the software applications, you can still reconfigure the hardware. Whenever we ask them to increase the RAM or other things, they can do it, and never come back and say well, it's VM's role. But every two years, we need to update the VM build; that we know. After four years, our VMs get old, so we need to replace them.

So far the response is good. Our team never comes back and says Oracle is giving us a hard time.

It's a challenge for us to keep investing in it. We are a manufacturing company, not an IT company. Whenever Oracle comes, say every three to five years, and says everybody change the system, you need to find the budget for that. And in a year, it’s going to be outdated again, right? After four years, my system has become completely outdated.

I'm sure there is one product, Oracle Data Integrator for loading bulk data from one system to another. We just starting using it. It’s a very good product, but we haven’t used all the features. Once we explored all the features, we got feedback from the company. I know so far that it’s good.

I know that everything is on the cloud; but eventually, if you are a new startup company, go to the VM. You have control over what you have, while at the same time, not dependent on the hardware.

With Oracle VM, the most valuable feature is the virtualization of the hardware, making it easier to maintain and support than actual OS's and networks resources. 

We can run software on a host separate from other hardware resources, which is important when we need to take a snapshot and restore it later on another VM.

But it also comes down to the fact that it's a product by Oracle, the industry leader. We know we can rely on it and that it'll be supported by an established company.

The fact that it cannot do a hot snapshot is a problem for us, but we work around it. We need to have good backups, while the system is up, which don't don't right now with Oracle VM. Our workarounds are fine for now, but we'd prefer to be able to just do hot snapshots when we need to.

We've had no issues deploying it.

I think it's fine, there are no issue there. We haven't had any big issues with it being unstable.

The scalability has been there for us as well. We've been able to scale as needed.

It's implemented just fine. The setup was pretty easy and straightforward. It was a combination of an easy product to install and technical expertise as well.

We implemented it ourselves with our in-house team.

We didn't really evaluate other products because we already run a lot of other Oracle solutions. Obviously, Oracle VM is supported by Oracle, which makes things easier than if we had used, for example, vSphere or Hyper-V.

Study ahead of time so you know what you're working with. Also, plan your implementation.

First because of the virtualization for Linux, I use just Linux basically in all VMs, a few with Windows. For Windows we decide to use a virtual box. In Linux, we choose to manage by the Command Line because my history is more Command Line.

I think more Command-Line options for the product, for deployments. I know that the latest version includes OpenStack support so you can manage things in any kind of OpenStack-certified solution. But I prefer to use Command Line traditionally with shells.

It's not stable if you don't use certified hardware. I work for a university and we don't have certified hardware, so we have to move the storage system to NVS instead of all of the cluster for a system because it's more stable.

Really, I don't have experience with a lot of installations because we have 20 or 25 virtual machines employed in a cluster.

To be honest, I never ask for support. I try to solve myself. I'm a kind of an old hacker. I've used Linux from the beginning so I decide to solve problems myself. 

If you only use the Command Line, it's easy. If you use the VM Management Console, you need to do more. Basically, another VM to manage, by itself, the cluster. But no, it's not complex.

I recommend Oracle VM instead of VMware or some other Windows native solution to virtualize Linux servers. It's performant for Linux.

It's similar to being Citrix-based with a little bit of difference on the technology side. It seems to handle some of the database mechanics better. Again, that's probably just the sampling size we've done, which may not be big enough, but it does seem to work with those a little bit better in our experience.

We've noticed that when working with Citrix with our Oracle clients who also use Oracle Linux, the monitoring and testing is simpler and easier for us to do.

It doesn't monitor everything, which is a little bit more difficult. It doesn't seem to have as many features or metrics to monitor as some others do, so you have to make some homemade scripts to do it. There are richer APIs out there that are able to pull the data back.

Also, finding files and downloading them and installing them can take a little bit of time. Once they've got it installed, it seems to work pretty good.

Operationally from a stability perspective, it has been pretty good. Some of the monitoring that we do will show when it starts getting stress, but then creating new ones has been effortless and it hasn't really been a problem.

We have been able to scale using it just fine.

It's a little bit cumbersome. To know exactly how to install it and the management pieces wasn't as straightforward as some of my admins have said.

Try it our and test it, and make sure it's going to be exactly what you need first versus the other options because they all have their own little idiosyncrasies, and you want to make sure it's going to be a fit for your organization.

It simplifies server management. In terms of server provisioning, it only takes a few clicks of a button and a bit of install automation. The server can be delivered in less than an hour, compared to physical machines.

The integrated web-based management console manages resources, virtual machine templates, and virtual machine images.

With our current OVM Manager version, migrating a VM from one repository to another repository was really complicated, especially editing and manually matching the configuration.

For the past three years, most of the issues we encountered were related to hardware issues. Based on our experience, I can say it is stable.

In terms of the visualization perspective, scaling was not an issue. You can scale without affecting the applications. You can even reconfigure WM hardware specs without affecting the system.

I would give technical support a rating of 8/10. Most of the calls I placed with Oracle for support were handled as expected.

In our current infrastructure, we have both ESXi and OVM Manager.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. All you have to do is to choose the right options.

I was not involved in the procurement phase.

I was not involved in the procurement phase.

Based in my experience, I would recommend this product in terms of:

• Support
• Stability
• Scalability
• Overall ease of management