Virtualization

[Christopher A. Williams]

On Tue, 2011-08-02 at 22:03 -0400, Jorge Fábregas wrote: 
> On 08/02/2011 09:40 PM, Christopher A. Williams wrote:
> > This is misleading at best and untrue from a practical matter. The key
> > is support as opposed to certification, and Oracle DOES support their
> > database systems on VMware. There is an official support statement from
> > Oracle to that effect.
> > 
> > The reality is that Oracle only *certifies* to the Operating system
> > layer, and VMware vSphere (ESX/ESXi) is considered hardware in that
> > regard. Ask Oracle if they certify their database on IBM vs. HP vs. Dell
> > hardware and you'll find that they don't certify any of them.
> 
> Not entirely correct. Oracle _does_ use the term "certifies" when
> referring not just to the OS but to the virtualization platform.   Check
> this post and the Metalink notes mentioned there (I assume you have a
> Metalink account):
> 
> http://blogs.oracle.com/UPGRADE/entry/is_oracle_certified_to_run_on
> 
> You'll see in one of the notes:
> 
> "Oracle has not certified any of its products on VMware virtualized
> environments."...
> 
> The reality is that, if you have a support issue, the support
> representative could - in theory - ask you to change your hypervisor in
> order to proceed with your service request otherwise you won't be
> supported.

No - not even close. The reality is that Oracle will not ask you to
change the hypervisor. Not in theory or in practice. Among other things,
that's illegal. There are already lawsuits underway in related actions
by Oracle, which I won't get into here. That would take too long and
Groklaw does a batter job anyway.

Ask Oracle what certification means. And ask them if it's certified on
specific hardware. You'll find that certification means pretty much
nothing from a practical perspective.

Certification in this regard is basically a marketing and FUD campaign
on the part of Oracle to scare you to buy their hypervisor product,
which is clearly inferior. Check out the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant
report on OVM if you need to see 3rd party assessments of that (despite
that I do not work for VMware either).

We're now way off base from the original post. Besides, this is a Fedora
forum as opposed to a VMware or Oracle one. But You're going to be very
hard pressed to prove that, as a practical matter, you're better off
virtualizing Oracle databases on OVM as compared to VMware.

Come to Las Vegas at the end of the month and you'll see this clearly
demonstrated.

> 
> > As an aside, it's also a little misleading to question certification
> > with respect to VMware but not KVM, which is neither certified (for what
> > that's worth) nor explicitly supported in the way that VMware is -
> > particularly when it comes to RAC versions 11.2.0.2 and later.
> 
> I questioned it because it was the one suggested.  I never implied other
> hypervisors were certified.

Not completely true. I specifically suggested Vbox as a recommended
alternative given the choices listed by the OP. I then pointed out that
ESX/ESXi is a better choice than the three offered. But it is true that
I would not recommend OVM either despite the ...ummm "certification"
from Oracle.

Chris

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