Happy Holidays to everyone, we wish you all the best for 2017.

Here are the top 5 blogs for the 2016:

Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.1.12 is now available!

Top 5 Reasons to Upgrade to Oracle VM 3.4.2

Learn to Speed Up Deployments with Oracle VM Templates

OpenStack support for Oracle VM Server for SPARC

Patch Set Updates (PSUs) for Oracle Secure Global Desktop

See you all in 2017!

This post is courtesy of Margaret Errington. 

In an era where storage is very affordable, collecting and storing data is no longer an issue. This explosion in data growth within the enterprise can bring new headaches, that of protecting it. Additionally,  if we are to add budget constraints, high service-level agreements, and technologies, such as virtualization to the mix, the capabilities of traditional backup and recovery processes may be a bit strained.

Customers are looking for backup/recovery solutions that address scalability, the ability to backup applications and databases both in the cloud and on-premises, and at the level of files to complete VMs.

In collaboration with Oracle, Backup and Recovery Software Partners have certified solutions for enterprise infrastructures built on Oracle Linux and/or Oracle VM. These solutions are available whether the customer’s IT environment who are on-premises or in the cloud. Below are some partners with currently supported data protection solutions:

• Acronis with Acronis Backup Advanced
• Actifio with Actifio Sky. Actifio Sky for Oracle Cloud is  available in Oracle Cloud Marketplace
• Asigra with Asigra Cloud backup
• Zmanda, a Carbonite company with Amanda Enterprise
• Arcserve with two backup products: Arcserve Backup and Arcserve Unified Data Protection
• Barracuda Networks with Barracuda Backup
• CloudBerrry Lab with CloudBerry Backup. CloudBerry Explorer provides a user interface to Oracle cloud storage
• Commvault with Commvault Software (formerly Simpana)
• Dell with Rapid Recovery and NetVault
• EMC with its Data Protection Suite (DPS), with Avamar and NetWorker as key components
• FalconStor Optimized backup (VTL & NAS)
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Data Protector; StoreOnce
• R1Soft  with Server backup Manager
• SEP with Sesam
• Storware with vProtect
• Storix System Backup Administrator
• Veritas Technologies with Backup Exec and  NetBackup, available in the Oracle Cloud Marketplace

Visit: Oracle Cloud Marketplace; Oracle Cloud; Infrastructure for Open Cloud: Oracle Linux; Oracle VM

Need more information? Contact us at: ol-ovm-info_ww at oracle.com. 

Oracle VM is engineered for open cloud infrastructure. This latest 3.4.2 release is focused on security along with new features and performance enhancements.

Below are the Top 5 Reasons why you should consider using this release or upgrading to it:

1. Security 

As part of Oracle's ongoing commitment to security, various components of Oracle VM Server and Oracle VM Manager have been patched with the recent security fixes. 

It's the best practice to keep Oracle VM environment up to date. Customers with an Oracle support plan covering Oracle VM may download the latest updates, including the latest software ISO releases, drivers, tools or utilities, from My Oracle Support or Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN).

2. Bug-Fixes

Xen Project software is an open source virtualization platform licensed under the GPLv2 with a similar governance structure to the Linux kernel. Designed from the start for cloud computing, the Project has more than a decade of development and is being used by more than 10 million users. Xen Project technology continues to see growth in a broad range of environments due to its flexibility, extensibility and customizability.

Major contributions for the Xen Project Hypervisor 4.8 release come from ARM, BitDefender, Bosch, Citrix, Freescale, Intel, Linaro, Oracle, Qualcomm, SUSE, Star Lab, the US National Security Agency, Xilinx, Zentific, and a number of universities and individuals. A few key enhancements:

• Live Patch enhancement: Security has consistently been the focus of the Xen Project. In the Xen Project Hypervisor 4.7, Live Patch was introduced to enable cloud administrators to minimize downtime and improve the user experience with non-disruptive security patching. In 4.8, Live Patch is now able to look for the “hooks” section in the payload and execute code from there. This update gives the patch author more control in modifying data and code. It also expands the capability for ARM and adds a way to execute the Live Patch payload.

• Split out and re-license libacpi: The code inside hvmloader to generate ACPI data for guests is split out as a separate library, libacpi, and has been re-licensed from GPL to LGPL and can now be shared across x86 and ARM. This change enables advancement in the ParaVirtualized Hardware guests (PVH). This not only improves performance and security, but also simplifies the architecture and Xen Project Hypervisor-OS interface significantly.

• PVH v2 update: PVH v2 guest (without PCI passthrough support) ABI is also now stabilized. PVH v2 enables faster and lower latency workloads. Guest operating system developers can start porting OSes to this mode. PVH is an extension to the classic Xen Project Paravirtualization (PV) that uses the hardware virtualization extensions available on modern x86 processors. PVH uses PV drivers for boot, I/O and x86 hardware virtualization extensions for page table operations, system calls and other privileged operations. PVH does not use emulated devices such as QEMU. The end result is the best characteristics of all the virtualization modes on PVH — a simple, fast, secure interface, low memory overhead, while taking full advantage of the hardware.

• Performance enhancements: Previous releases had improved certain highly contested code paths such as switching from byte lock to qticket lock, making read/write locks fair and splitting locks for grant operations. In the Xen Project Hypervisor 4.8 release, an optimization to TLB flush is introduced to greatly reduce the number of flushes needed during domain creation. This can reduce domain creation time for very large domains (with hundreds of gigabytes of RAM) from a few minutes to tens of seconds. Furthermore, the latency of "gettimeofday" call has been reduced by an optimization called Virtual Dynamic Shared Object (vDSO) to improve the performance for database and Java workloads.

• Credit2 scheduler is now supported: Compared to the default Credit scheduler, the Credit2 scheduler is more scalable and better at supporting latency-sensitive workloads such as VDI, video and sound delivery, as well as unikernel applications. Credit2 is still based on a general purpose, weighted fair share, scheduling algorithm, unlike some of the more specialized Xen Project schedulers such as RTDS and ARINC653.

• Read the announcement by The Linux Foundation for the complete list of enhancements delivered in the Xen Project Hypervisor 4.8.

Oracle's contributions to the Xen Project and continued collaboration with the community enable us to help our customers build their open cloud infrastructure. The Xen Project Hypervisor has been customized and optimized to integrate into the larger, Oracle-developed virtualization server - Oracle VM Server for x86. Oracle Linux and Oracle VM power Oracle Cloud, Oracle Engineered Systems (Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Private Cloud Appliance, etc.) and allow customers the flexibility to run the most demanding workloads on their infrastructure of choice.

Some of the performance and security enhancements in Xen Project 4.8 have been integrated into the latest update of Oracle VM Server for x86, which you can download by following the instructions here. For more information about Oracle Linux and Virtualization, visit www.oracle.com/virtualization.

Oracle OpenStack for Oracle Linux maintains the flexibility of OpenStack, while allowing you to deploy different configurations and integrate with a range of software and hardware vendors.

If you are new to OpenStack, the Oracle OpenStack for Oracle Linux: Getting Started seminar is perfect for you. You can take this one-day seminar as a:

• Live-Virtual Event: Attend a live event from your own desk, no travel required. Events are added to the schedule to suit different time-zones.
• In-Class Event: Travel to an education center to take this class.

Oracle can help you improve your private cloud architecture while lowering your risk and cost of getting to the public cloud.

Are you migrating your mission critical workloads to the cloud? Oracle’s already done it and Oracle drinks its own champagne! In other words, while lots of cloud vendors offer solutions that they want customers to buy, very few of them run their entire business in the cloud. Oracle runs a $37 billion organization, with 115,000 employees, supporting over 420,000 customers in 145 countries in the cloud.

For example:

• Our entire product development and support environments are in the cloud
• Our business processes (HR, CRM, Supply Chain, Financials, Analytics, etc.) are in the cloud
• We provide SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services to our customers in the cloud in public, private and hybrid environments

Oracle defined the optimal process over the past 10 years and avoided many of the problems affecting typical migrations to cloud. Why is that important to you? According to Gartner, most Cloud ERP systems are doomed to fail by 2018 and 95% of Private Cloud projects fail to meet business objectives. What are the common problems identified in these two assessments? Relying on complex legacy architecture to support your move to cloud is a mistake that impacts both migration and application integration. Why? Complex legacy architectures are incompatible with the cloud architectures needed to deliver on the promises of agility, responsiveness and cost savings.

Spend an evening with Oracle in learning how Oracle is making it easier for customers to improve their private cloud infrastructure and positioning customers to more effectively move to the cloud. 

Join us for dinner and a discussion with Oracle’s Cloud Executive Team and customers to understand how we overcame these challenges by choosing a specific path from SaaS, to PaaS to IaaS, built the fastest growing cloud business globally, and answer questions like the following to ensure you are on the best path to your success:

Please register as soon as possible to attend since the seats are limited and allocated at first come, first serve basis.

Chicago : Oracle Linux & Virtualization: Cocktails, Dinner & The Cloud

December 6, 2016 – 6-9pm CST @ Smith & Wollensky

Event Registration here

Minneapolis : Oracle Linux & Virtualization: Cocktails, Dinner & The Cloud

December 7, 2016 – 5-8:30pm CST @ McCormick & Schmicks

Event Registration here

Toronto: Oracle Linux & Virtualization: Cocktails, Dinner & The Cloud

December 13, 2016 – 6-9pm EST @ Harbour Sixty Steakhouse

Event Registration here

Dallas: Oracle Linux & Virtualization: Cocktails, Dinner & The Cloud

January 31, 2017 – 6-9pm CST @ La Cima Club

Event Registration here

Seattle: Oracle Linux & Virtualization: Cocktails, Dinner & The Cloud

Februry 2, 2016 – 6-9pm PST @ Metropolitan Grill

Event Registration here

See you at one of our events!

We are presenting at this year's UK Oracle User Group meeting in Birmingham, UK. Here is the abstract of the presentation. Visit us if you are there.

We are delighted to announce the release of the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance: Administration training. This course provides you with a wealth of information about installing, configuring and using this cost-effective and rapid private cloud solution for consolidating your mixed Linux, Windows and Oracle Solaris applications.

You can take the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance: Administration training as a:

• Live-Virtual Event: Attend a live event from your own desk, no travel required. Events are added to the schedule to suit different time-zones.
  
• In-Class Event: Travel to an education center to take this class. The schedule will be built out based on demand.
  

Be the first to influence this course schedule by registering your interest in an event type and date/location/time-zone here.

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance consolidates your mixed Linux, Windows, or Oracle Solaris applications. It is engineered for cost-effective and rapid private cloud deployment.

Recently we had a webcast where Peter Burris, Wikibon’s Chief Research Officer, analyzed the total cost of ownership (TCO) for a mixed workload environment running Oracle Database, Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards, Microsoft SQL Server and SAS. You will see a side-by-side TCO comparison between an Oracle Private Cloud Appliance and a white box infrastructure. And you’ll walk away with a third-party validated business case analysis for enterprise IT infrastructure with potential for $1.4M in savings over 3 years.Watch the replay here, and you can find the cost comparison on the Wikibon Research Paper.

Please reach out to your Oracle team and discuss how Oracle Private Cloud Appliance delivers superior TCO benefits for your environment.

As most of you already know, Oracle VM Server x86, engineered for Open Cloud, is a fundamental component for Private Cloud solutions.

When an Oracle VM architecture has been defined, we also need to manage it fast&easy, mostly if the architecture is in a phase of permanent expansion.

Even if the installation of Oracle VM Server for x86 is a very easy operation, it could happen that a faster, easier and also repeatable solution, able to automate the installation of Oracle VM Server (dom0) is needed:

• Faster: because it won't require any kind of medium preparation and/or physical server access
• Easier: because it's able to automate the installation without any kind of human interaction
• Repeatable: because it assures that the same installation will be executed on all the systems installed

To answer this need, using kickstart and other opensource tools, a system administrator can create a single file containing the answers to all the questions that would normally be asked during a typical installation and automate the installation without any human interaction.

Kickstart installations, provide an automated alternative to the normal interactive installations of Oracle VM Server for x86. The automation of installation and post installation configuration steps represents a considerable time saving in situations when the private cloud solution is in a phase of permanent expansion.

On this argument, as usual, we can find official Oracle documentation but also a very detailed step-by-step guide with configuration file examples on this blog entry.