Oracle VM General Policy Description [ID 466538.1]

Oracle VM General Policy Description [ID 466538.1]

Modified 27-APR-2011 Type FAQ Status PUBLISHED
In this Document
Purpose
Questions and Answers
What is Oracle VM?
Who supports Oracle VM?
What products are certified to run on it?
Hard partitioning with Oracle VM Server for x86
Entitlement for Oracle VM support
How to Subscribe to Oracle VM Support
Restrictions on Oracle VM Support
References

Applies to:

Oracle VM - Version: 2.1 and later [Release: OVM21 and later ]
Linux x86
Linux x86-64
Purpose

Oracle VM General Policy Description
Questions and Answers

What is Oracle VM?

Oracle VM offers scalable, low-cost server virtualization that fully supports both Oracle and non-Oracle applications. Consisting of open source server software and an integrated Web browser-based management console, Oracle VM provides an easy-to-use, rich, graphical interface for creating and managing virtual server pools, running on x86 and x86-64-based systems, across an enterprise.
Users can create and manage Virtual Machines (VMs) that exist on the same physical server but behave like independent physical servers. Each virtual machine created with Oracle VM has its own virtual CPUs, network interfaces, storage and operating system. With Oracle VM, users have an easy-to-use browser-based tool for creating VMs, cloning VMs, sharing VMs, configuring VMs, and booting VMs.
Virtualization is the ability to run multiple virtual machines on a single piece of hardware. The hardware runs software which enables you to install multiple operating systems which are able to run simultaneously and independently, in their own secure environment, with minimal reduction in performance. Each virtual machine consists of an operating system and a predefined set of resources from the hardware called a domain. The domain is a configurable subset of resources from the hardware including: CPU resources, network interfaces, and storage.
Oracle VM is a platform that provides a fully equipped environment for better leveraging the benefits of virtualization technology. Oracle VM enables you to deploy operating systems and application software within a supported virtualization environment.
Oracle VM includes two components : Oracle VM Server and Oracle VM Manager . Oracle VM Server is under GPL. It is freely downloadable, freely redistributable and usable. Oracle VM Manager ships on a separate CD. It is not open source, but it is also freely downloadable, redistributable, and usable.
Who supports Oracle VM?

Oracle VM is supported by the support team in the Linux Engineering Team. The same team provides Oracles Enterprise Linux support.
What products are certified to run on it?

Please refer to Note 464754.1 for a complete list of Oracle products certified on Oracle VM.
Hard partitioning with Oracle VM Server for x86

With Oracle VM server for x86, guests are allowed to be pinned or bound to specific physical cores in a single Oracle VM server, see "Hard Partitioning with Oracle VM ". Once hard partitioned, the VM guest application only needs to be licensed for the number of physical cores it is pinned to, see Oracle's licensing policies for partitioned environments . Note that once a VM guest is pinned or bound to physical cores within a server, Oracle licensing restricts that guest from being live migrated to another VM server in the pool.
Entitlement for Oracle VM support

Oracle VM support licenses are sold separately from Oracle product support licenses and also separately from Oracle Linux support licenses. An Oracle VM support license does not entitle a customer to Linux support, even for Linux Guest-OSes.
Although Oracle makes an effort to always help customers, a support license for Oracle VM is required when customers open a service request with Oracle. Service Requests may be closed if a customer has an Oracle VM issue, but no support license. If a customer has an Oracle product issue but no Oracle VM support entitlement, the customer will be informed that they lack support entitlement for Oracle VM and that to receive further Oracle product assistance, they will be required to reproduce the issue in a non-virtualized environment.
How to Subscribe to Oracle VM Support

Licenses for Oracle VM support may be purchased through your sales representative or through the Oracle Store. See Oracle Store.
Restrictions on Oracle VM Support

Restrictions on certain virtualized operations for each Oracle product can be found on Certify or through Note 464754.1
Oracle VM does not provide Guest-OS support for SUSE/Asianux or other flavors of Linux.
Microsoft Windows can only be run as a Guest-OS in HVM mode. Oracle does not provide support for Windows at the OS level beyond standard setup and configuration assistance. Please refer to Note 468634.1 for a more detailed description of the support conditions.
References

NOTE:468634.1 - Oracle VM and Microsoft Windows