Preface

Oracle VM Manager is a management product developed by Oracle that complements Oracle Grid Control and fits into Oracle's Cloud Computing strategy. Oracle VM Manager is a rather new product and is gaining popularity within the Oracle community, especially within groups that have been testing Oracle products in sandbox environments using alternate Virtualization products or tools. Since Oracle provides its own version of Oracle EL jeOS (Just Enough OS), and its own VM stack (or platform as they call it), Oracle VM Manager, Oracle VM Server, and Oracle VM agent become an essential part of the Oracle Virtualization platform; the "one-stop-shop" approach allows Oracle customers to rely on a consolidated support. This could also fit very well into their strategy where Oracle will eventually launch its own Cloud Services and will fully manage and support its offerings via the Cloud.

Oracle entered the virtualization market in 2007 by releasing Oracle VM Server and Oracle VM Manager. Oracle has also been shipping Oracle EL, or Oracle Enterprise Linux products, recently calling Oracle jeOS. Do note that they are separately downloadable from Oracle's e-delivery. Oracle's entry into the virtualization arena is a validation of the fact that virtualization is going mainstream and also that it is increasingly becoming an enabler to Cloud Computing and Cloud Applications.

Oracle VM Manager is a powerful web application, based on ADF (Application Development Framework), and its purpose is, as you may have guessed, to manage multiple Oracle VM Servers. This means that it does the VMLM (Virtual Machine Lidecycle Management), adds virtual machines (whether from completely built templates or from installation media), live migration, deployment, and relocation, among others.

Oracle VM Manager also manages resources such as ISO files, VM templates, and shared disk resources. In the new release, 2.1.2, there are several cool features such as the Server Pool Wizard, HA for Server Pools and VM Servers, VM conversions, Rate Limit of VIF (Virtual Network Interface), and Priority Class of Virtual Disk.

Oracle's virtualization play may seem to encounter a lot of resistance and skepticism, but Oracle is gradually treading a path where it will continue to develop its product to match enterprise class maturity as the market further evolves. Clearly with the latest Oracle VM 2.1.2, many new features have come about indicating that Oracle is more than serious.