CHAPTER
6
What’s New in OVM 3.x
Oracle VM Server for x86 version 3 is the latest virtualization product from Oracle and at the time of publication of this book was at version 3.4.2. Oracle VM Server for x86 is just part of the virtualization product line, which also includes Oracle VM Server for SPARC and Oracle VM Manager. This book covers both Oracle VM Server for x86 and Oracle VM Manager, but VM Server for SPARC is not covered in this book.
Introduction to OVM 3.x
OVM 3.x for x86 is the latest in the evolution of Oracle’s virtualization products, and it represents a significant investment in virtualization and cloud computing from Oracle. Oracle VM 3 has added many new, easy-to-use features in order to improve its usability. The new features of Oracle VM 3.x are covered in the remainder of this chapter.
OVM 3.4.2 was released in September of 2016 and is the current release as of the writing of this book. Other versions of OVM 3.x were released according to the schedule listed here:
These releases continue to improve and enhance the Oracle VM product. As you will see in this chapter, Oracle VM is much improved from the previous version, OVM 2.x.
OVM 3.x New Features
Many new features have been added to Oracle VM 3 and are detailed in this chapter, including features of both the Oracle VM Manager and Oracle VM Server for x86. The Oracle VM Manager has been enhanced to work across both Oracle VM for x86 and Oracle VM for SPARC. This book, however, is written to cover Oracle VM for x86 only, and references to Oracle VM for SPARC will be provided only when necessary.
OVM Manager
The OVM Manager is the web-based tool we use in order to administer the Oracle VM environment. This tool is robust and is constantly being updated and improved. The OVM Manager consists of a database repository, a web server, and a user interface. The OVM Manager provides an API that allows other applications, such as the command-line interface (CLI), to communicate with it as well. In OVM 3.x, this API is implemented as a Web Services API that provides a REST interface into the OVM Manager.
WebLogic Server Built In
In OVM 3.x, the WebLogic server is built into the installation process. It is not necessary to install or configure WebLogic separate from the OVM Manager. The version of WebLogic installed with the OVM Manager varies based on the specific version.
The Oracle WebLogic server provides a stable and robust platform for running the OVM Manager. It is installed automatically with the OVM Manager, so no additional steps need to be performed.
MySQL Database Built In
The Oracle VM Manager repository database stores configuration and event information. This is now configured as a MySQL Enterprise database that is bundled with the OVM Manager installation process. As with the WebLogic installation, the version of MySQL Enterprise varies based on the OVM Manager version and is constantly being updated.
MySQL Enterprise provides a stable and high-performance database to serve as the repository for OVM. As with the WebLogic server, nothing else needs to be installed. Installation is automatic with the OVM Manager.
The use of MySQL gives Oracle better control over features, such as automated integrity checks, automated backups, and so on. Automatically installing MySQL as the repository database creates the OVM Manager as an appliance, where everything is included.
New Management Features
New management features are available within OVM Manager and OVM Server that are designed to help with the administration, troubleshooting, and maintenance of OVM. These features improve OVM and include the Xen 4.0 hypervisor, an updated dom0, centralized network configuration and management, and the OVM Storage Connect framework.
Xen 4.0 Hypervisor
OVM 3.x utilizes the Xen 4.0 hypervisor, which provides more hardware support, improved performance, and more scalability than previous versions of the Xen hypervisor. Oracle continues to stay in sync with the latest stable releases of the Xen hypervisor in an effort to provide the best features and capabilities from the Xen community.
Updated Dom0
Dom0, or domain 0, is critical to the Oracle VM system and has been updated with the latest Oracle Unbreakable Linux Kernel and device drivers. The role of dom0 is to be the interface between the administrator and the hypervisor. Unlike other domains, dom0 has direct access to the underlying hardware.
Centralized Network Configuration and Management
All network configuration is done via the OVM Manager, including network configuration, NIC port bonding, and VLAN network access configuration. Unlike in Oracle VM 2, you no longer need to perform any configurations outside of OVM Manager.
Storage Connect Storage Configuration and Management
The OVM Storage Connect framework allows for the easy configuration of storage within the OVM environment. This allows you to configure Storage Area Network (SAN), Network File System (NFS), and Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) storage all from within the OVM Manager. The OVM Manager will automatically discover available storage using this feature.
Performance, Scalability, and Security
With OVM 3.x, the OVM server is capable of supporting up to 160 CPUs and 2TB of memory. The per-machine limits of the OVM server have been increased to 128 virtual CPUs. The latest supported maximums for both Oracle VM servers and Oracle VM guests are documented in the release notes for each Generally Available (GA) or errata release of Oracle VM.
Job Management Framework
The new job management framework has improved the functionality of OVM Manager. Each operation is performed as a job. OVM Manager provides the status of a job as it is running, including percent complete, steps completed, and steps remaining. You can view the job through the GUI at any time and debug a failed job through the GUI.
Event Logging
New event logging is essentially a history that allows changes made to the OVM system to be logged and reviewed. Events can also alert you to issues or problems with the OVM jobs.
Easier Hard Partitioning
With OVM 3.x, it is now easier to set up hard partitioning than in previous versions. Hard partitioning allows physical CPUs in the underlying OVM server to be mapped to OVM clients. By using hard partitioning, you are able to guarantee that only those CPUs are used by the client. This is the only method that allows you to license virtual CPUs for Oracle databases and other Oracle software. In order to set up hard partitioning, download the OVM Utilities from My Oracle Support. The OVM Utilities contain ovm_vmcontrol, which can be used to configure hard partitioning.
Private Cloud Self-Service with OEM
Oracle Enterprise Manager integration with Oracle VM allows for more than just management of OVM. For example, it provides the ability to configure private cloud self-service. Oracle Enterprise Manager 13c provides all the support necessary to enable the private cloud. This also allows for management of Oracle Site Guard within OEM.
Manage Old OVM with New OVM Manager
Starting with OVM Manager version 3.4.2, you no longer have to update Oracle VM servers immediately during an upgrade. OVM Manager version 3.4.2 manages Version 3.4 and Version 3.3 Oracle VM servers. However, it is still a good idea to upgrade the servers as soon as possible to take full advantage of new features, capabilities, and fixes introduced with each subsequent release of the product.
Huge Page Support
Support for Huge Pages has been added to guests in OVM 3.3. This allows for Oracle databases running in OVM Guests to take advantage of this valuable performance feature. The Huge Pages feature allows Oracle database instances to access SGA memory using 2MB memory pages versus 4KB memory pages, decreasing memory management overhead and providing higher performance.
Topology Maps
From the VM Manager, select a VM either through server pools or via the VM server itself. Right-click on the VM and select Display VM Hierarchy Viewer in order to see the virtual machine hierarchy and dependencies. This gives you a graphical view of the VM components.
Support for OVF
OVM now supports Open Virtualization Format (OVF) software-based assemblies. This makes it easier to deploy prebuilt virtual machines.
OSWatcher
OVM 3.4 has enabled the OSWatcher utility to run at boot time on OVM servers. The OSWatcher utility collects valuable OS performance information that can be used to analyze the system.
Distributed Resource Scheduling
The Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS) provides real-time monitoring of Oracle VM Server utilization to rebalance a server pool for maximum utilization and performance. DRS Live migrates VMs from higher utilized VM servers to less utilized ones.
Distributed Power Management
Distributed Power Management (DPM) optimizes a server pool for minimum power consumption by reducing the number of powered-on servers when there are periods of low utilization. DPM will automatically power up more Oracle VM servers as they become needed.
Disaster Recovery Using Oracle Site Guard
Oracle Site Guard is bundled with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12.1.0.5 and later. Oracle Site Guard orchestrates virtual machine failover and more, allowing databases and applications to be moved between Oracle VM Managers at the same site or even different sites if there is an issue with the primary system. Oracle Site Guard supports Active/Passive, Active/Standby, and Active/Active configurations. This is a needed component for disaster recovery (DR).
OCFS2 Filesystem
Oracle VM 3 supports the updated OCFS2 cluster filesystem. As new releases of OVM are released, the version of OCFS2 is constantly being improved. OCFS2 is used to provide clustering for the High Availability features of Oracle VM.
RESTful API
The RESTful Web Services provide a way of communicating between programs (REST stands for Representational State Transfer). The RESTful calls can use XML, HTML, JSON, or other defined formats. The RESTful API is implemented in the VM Manager and is available via the OVM Manager port.
Integration with Private Cloud Appliance
Oracle VM comes integrated with the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance out of the box. This Private Cloud Appliance is an Oracle Engineered System designed to provide high-performance and scalable private cloud services.
Virtual Appliances
Virtual Appliances are pre-built virtual machine assemblies. Examples of these “appliances” include Oracle VM Virtual Appliances for E-Business Suite 12.1.3 and Oracle Big Data Appliance Lite. A Virtual Appliance is a virtual machine (or a set of virtual machines) that performs a specific function or service for a particular application.
NVME Support
With Oracle VM 3.4.2, NVM Express (NVMe) devices are supported and detected. NVMe stands for Nonvolatile Memory Express. These are essentially flash hardware devices that can be used to provide high-performance storage in the OVM environment.
Storage Live Migration
OVM 3.4 introduces storage live migration, which allows not only for live migration of virtual machines between servers but live migration of storage as well. This is a huge step forward in reducing downtime by allowing for live migration from systems that use local storage for storage repositories. This feature was introduced to provide nonclustered server pools with the ability to “live migrate” Oracle VM guests between multiple nodes without shared storage. This feature does not work with shared Oracle VM storage repositories using NFS, iSCSI, or Fibre Channel—only local storage.
Oracle VM Limitations
Oracle VM limitations vary slightly by version. In order to give you a complete picture of these limitations, they are provided and notated where subsequent releases have improved on them.
Oracle VM Server Limits
The limits on VM servers are impressive. Here, they are broken down into server maximums, network maximums, and storage maximums. Server maximums are provided in Table 6-1.
TABLE 6-1. Server Maximums
Network maximums are provided in Table 6-2.
TABLE 6-2. Network Maximums
Storage maximums are provided in Table 6-3.
TABLE 6-3. Storage Maximums
Oracle VM Virtual Machine Limits
The virtual machine limits are also impressive. The maximums are listed in Table 6-4.
TABLE 6-4. Virtual Machine Maximums
Summary
This chapter has provided basic information about the new features in OVM 3.x. Some of the features highlighted here were introduced in OVM 3.0, and some were introduced in later versions. At the time of this writing, OVM 3.4.2 is the current version of OVM. However, newer versions of OVM could be out, possibly including OVM 4.x, by the time you’ve read this chapter. Regardless, many of these features will continue to be the core features of OVM in the future.
