19 Nov Bye bye Oracle VM, welcome Oracle Linux KVM

Posted at 06:11h in Oracle, Virtualization by

Updated March 2022

It’s been many years ago when Oracle released its own hypervisor: Oracle VM. The technology is based on the free and open-source Xen hypervisor. At the time of writing version 3.4.6.3 is the latest one available. Some advantages of Oracle VM (non-exhaustive list):

  • Support for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Solaris guests;
  • Fully optimized to run Oracle workloads;
  • Free to download;
  • Support of hypervisor, OS (in case of Oracle Linux or Solaris) and Oracle software (database, middleware, …) at the same vendor: Oracle off course;
  • Availability of pre-installed templates saving time in deploying Oracle software;
  • Finally: Oracle VM is an Oracle-approved hard partitioning technology, helping to save the numbers of Oracle licenses needed when virtualizing.

 

However, Oracle VM 3.5 or 4.0 will never release. Oracle now focuses on new hypervisor technology: Oracle Linux KVM. This one is based on the open-source oVirt project, using the trusted Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor underneath. And the great news: it’s all included within Oracle Linux Premier support (so no need for separate support for the hypervisor layer anymore).

What is Oracle Linux KVM?

Oracle Linux KVM will be the way to go for current Oracle VM customers. As Operating systems, containers and virtualization are the fundamental building blocks of modern IT infrastructure, Oracle combines them all into one integrated offering: Oracle Linux.

Oracle Linux KVM is a feature delivered and fully supported as part of Oracle Linux. Everything is available within a single software distribution. And nice to know: Oracle Linux KVM is the same hypervisor used in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, which give users the same look and feel as on the Oracle Cloud.

Off course Oracle Linux KVM has the same advantages as Oracle VM (except for Solaris guest support), extended with some other advantages (non-exhaustive):

  • Role Based Access Control;
  • Light weight VM portal to manage VM’s;
  • Backup and restore guests via snapshots;
  • Included within Oracle Linux Premier support (no need for separate hypervisor support);
  • Software Define Storage using Gluster (create HyperConverged Infrastructure);
  • Easy migration path towards Oracle cloud in the future.

Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager will be the GUI to configure, monitoring and manage the Oracle Linux KVM environment. It has 2 parts actually.

The first one (Administration Portal) to manage your entire virtual environment:

Oracle VM dashboard

The second one “VM Portal” to manage your VM’s. Your developers/customers/… should access this one. Using the lightweight portal they can start/stop their VM’s, take a snapshot and check the console in case of issues.

What about Oracle VM support?

Oracle VM Primary Support ended March 2021. Oracle will continue to support Oracle VM 3 in Extended support until March 2024 (also see the Lifetime Support Policy):

VM supportImportant: 1st year Extended support is 10% more expensive than Premier support (uplift of 10%), 2nd and 3rd year Extended support is even 20% more expensive. Following is not included in Extended support:

  • New hardware support
  • Backport of fixes

More details can be found in the Oracle Linux and Oracle VM Support Policies.

Customers currently using Oracle VM still have some time to move to Oracle Linux KVM in the next coming years (. Customers migrating to new hardware, should immediately start using Oracle Linux KVM.

How to migrate from Oracle VM to Oracle Linux KVM?

Simon Coter, Oracle Linux and Virtualization Product Management, has published a great blog post about how to migrate Oracle VM to Oracle Linux KVM: https://blogs.oracle.com/scoter/migrate-oracle-vm-to-oracle-linux-kvm.

This post describes the semi-automated migration from Oracle VM 3.4 to Oracle Linux KVM, the same way in which we perform the migrations from Oracle VM to Oracle Linux KVM.

Or another post of Simon on how to migrate using virt-v2v: https://blogs.oracle.com/scoter/post/virt-v2v-in-action-migrate-virtual-machine-from-oracle-vm-to-oracle-linux-kvm.

 

Do you still have questions about your specific Oracle VM or Oracle Linux KVM environment? Want to discuss how to migrate from Oracle VM to Oracle Linux KVM? Or just wondering how you could optimize your licenses on a virtualized environment? Just contact us via phone: +32 3 450 67 89 or via e-mail: info@monin-it.be

 

Some interesting links: