Oracle VM Reviews

Quick provisioning is the most valuable feature. It comes bundled with Oracle Database Appliance and we use it for our PeopleSoft instances. You could basically create an instance for your dev environment, QA, UAT and production, and do it quicker than doing it from bare metal.

As I’ve mentioned, it’s all about speed, quickness; do it pretty quick. We also have customizations. If we have a base image, we can take that base image, apply customizations, take a snapshot, and then we can copy it with a cookie-cutter approach for other environments as well.

I like the idea of, snap, and everything's available to you. You can tweak it, make another image again and you can copy it.

We're using NFS, which I've been informed might not be the best file system to be using. However, with the latest version, apparently, there are supposed to be some updates that will help with the drivers to use NFS; it would make it more stable and better, performance-wise, as well.

It is stable. For the most part, it's the guys I work with who use it. I'm a project manager, but they're pretty happy with the technology.

We have not had to scale it that much.

The guys I work with are not too keen with the Oracle support. They tend to find their own solutions.

The reason we decided to invest in this new solution was all about cost. We were going with an n-tier architecture. We had 12 physical servers. Now, with the ODA, we have two chassis that run on a virtualized platform and it makes it a lot easier to manage.

Initial setup was pretty good. It was basically out of the box because the Oracle Database Appliance is being promoted as out of the box. You turn on a switch and a login script starts up the whole process; that worked out well. We had a few glitches in terms of learning how it all works together. We certainly overcame some of those challenges and we're really happy with the product.

Insert linkThere were no other vendors on the shortlist, because we're an Oracle shop.
Nonetheless, when I do think about working with a vendor like Oracle, I look for depth of knowledge, reliability and whether they have a pretty good clientele out there. It's always good to compare notes or see what other people are doing out there and help one another.

Look at what other people are doing, take notes and talk to your Oracle rep. They really come on board and help you out through the process.

I find the VM server features useful for moving VM’s while keeping the most important ones available.

With Oracle VM we can deliver new infrastructure much faster by deploying from templates and cloning it after customizing.

I would like to see a proper and stable client to access Oracle VM Manager. Installation documents should be improved regarding storage details and shared cluster disks.

I have used it for three years for many US, UK and European clients.

The issues I found were related to cluster disk shared on our SAN. It was about detailed storage configurations.

The issues I found were related to cluster disk shared on our SAN. It was about detailed storage configurations.

The issues I found were related to cluster disk shared on our SAN. It was about detailed storage configurations.

Unfortunately, I didn’t see the same level of expertise as I see regarding Oracle Databases. Oracle must improve their support skills and knowledge base to help clients with issues.

I also use VMware vSphere, but for Microsoft based solutions (Windows Servers, Sharepoint, MSSQL, etc). Oracle VM is a better choice and cheaper one when we are using Oracle Solutions.

The initial setup was very hard and required me to create a build doc to my company so anyone could do it again. The cluster documentation is not straightforward when we use 3rd party SAN hardware.

I implemented it for British and European clients using my own build document as there was not enough information for Hitachi SAN storages. I would advise you to create a proper POC and test all hardware pieces. Also, Oracle Linux is a must have on these kind of environments.

Well, this is the most important factor on Oracle VM as it is a free solution to implement, and very cheap to license. If you also use Oracle VM as operating system, then all makes sense regarding pricing, support and performance.

It still lacks a reliable Oracle VM Manager able to also report performance. Also, Oracle Support knowledge base is still growing. My advice is to have skilled people to implement it. Although it is cheap, it needs the correct skills for a proper cluster implementation and to resolve issues.

We are a consulting company and one of the solutions that we assist our clients with is Oracle VM. I work with several different clients and they have different use cases.

My client using the Oracle VM says that it is working well.

I can use Oracle VM to manage my VMs and databases.

The interface on the newest version is good.

Oracle VM integrates well.

The network capabilities are good.

It is easy to migrate and clone VMs.

There have been some security issues in the past.

Having even more integration with other products would be an improvement.

The current version, 3.4.6, is usable. However, I had many problems with the Java console in previous versions, such as 3.2. It is easy to access now but prior to this, you had to install different versions of Java. The stability has improved over time.

This is a scalable solution. I can use many nodes inside of a cluster. Also, I can create one group and put several servers in it.

The Oracle technical support is very good.

I have also used KVM and it is a good tool.

VMware is another good tool but it is difficult to compare them. VMware has a better hypervisor but Oracle VM does many things, and it costs less.

Oracle VM is easy to set up. It can be deployed with one person.

We have five analysts for support and that work with it.

The price of the license is expensive.

Another one of the jobs that I do is assist my clients with migration to Oracle VM. For example, some migrate from VM to Oracle VM, and others migrate from Hyper-V to Oracle VM.

Overall, this Oracle VM works well for us. It is a good product, although Oracle is now recommending that we transition to Oracle KVM.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We generally recommend this solution to our customers and we deploy it for them. The solution runs on the exologic environment with multiple VMs and multiple abbreviations. In this case the solution is being used in a telecommunications company. Most of our clients are big enterprise. We partner with Oracle and I'm a senior systems support engineer. 

The previous version was full of bugs but they seem to have resolved all the issues on it so it's a good solution. Oracle VM is a good visualization hypervisor, like VMware and Hyper-V. We can create clusters, and primary file takeaways.

They could improve deployment by making the documentation easier. Also, I always find it difficult to mount the image on the Oracle VM. There are a few things that could be improved, features such as mounting and unmounting the images on Oracle VM.

I've been using this solution for around five years. 

This is a stable product. 

Scalability is good, we're able to deploy the solution to big environments.

The initial setup is straightforward, deployment time really depends on the client's needs. Sometime it takes two to three days and sometimes it can take months. We also do the maintenance for them. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

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.

We were curious and wanted to test the product since we were standardizing our virtualized environment. 

We knew that VMware was feature-rich, and we wanted to look as others as well to avoid vendor lock in.

I've been using it for one years.

It was complex.

We did it in-house.

We were not happy with the aggressive licensing model of Oracle and thought we would end-up in a similar situation to the Database where we have to pay the license fee for passive nodes as well.

We selected VMware and KVM.

The Red Hat KVM is better than the OVM in terms of performance and simple support.

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

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.