08/06-11   -   Press releases

Oracle Announces Latest Version of Oracle VM Server for SPARC

New Live Migration Capabilities Enable Customers to Eliminate Application Downtime and Improve Server Utilization

News Facts
- Continuing to deliver new innovations in virtualization for Oracle Solaris and its SPARC servers, Oracle today announced Oracle VM Server for SPARC 2.1, a key component in Oracle’s complete, integrated desktop to datacenter virtualization portfolio.

- Pre-installed on Oracle’s SPARC T-series servers, Oracle VM Server for SPARC is a server virtualization solution that allows up to 128 virtual machines, or “domains", on one system, providing organizations increased flexibility and improved server utilization.

- Oracle VM Server for SPARC 2.1 delivers live migration capabilities to the SPARC T-series server family, including SPARC T3, UltraSPARC T2 Plus and UltraSPARC T2 based servers, allowing customers to quickly and easily migrate running domains from one physical server to another, eliminating application outages and server downtime.

- In addition, Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Virtualization Management Pack provides full lifecycle management of Oracle VM Server for SPARC.

New Features Enable Customers to Increase Application Service Levels

- Through the enhancements to domain migration and resource management, users of Oracle SPARC T-series servers can benefit from increased application service levels.

- Oracle VM Server for SPARC 2.1 delivers:

o - Live migration: Enables users to migrate an active domain to another host machine while maintaining application services to users. Live migrations are as simple as point and click using Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center’s console.
o - Dynamic Resource Management (DRM) between domains: Ensures that domains running the most important workloads get priority for CPU access over domains with less critical workloads.
o - Increased maximum number of virtual networks per domain: Permits a dramatic increase in external access to domains.
o - Lower-overhead, higher scalability networking for Oracle Solaris 11 Express: Allows virtual network devices to use shared memory to exchange network packets, enabling improved performance and scalability.
o - Support for Virtual Device Service Validation: Immediately validates the name and path for a specified network device or virtual disk, greatly reducing the risk of incorrectly configured I/O.
o - Integrated Dynamic Reconfiguration (DR) of Cryptographic units and virtual CPUs: Cryptographic units and CPUs are dynamically reconfigured together to simplify operations and ensure consistent performance.
o - Enhanced Management Information Base (MIB): Enables the SNMP MIB to use the latest Logical Domains Manager XML interface, permitting third party management software to access the new features and resource properties.
o - P2V tool enhancements: Bring more flexibility to quickly convert an existing SPARC server running Oracle Solaris 8, 9 or 10 into a virtualized Oracle Solaris image to run on SPARC T-series servers.
o - Secure, encrypted migration included: On-chip cryptographic accelerators deliver secure, wire speed encryption capabilities for live migration – without any additional hardware investments.

Supporting Quotes
- “The addition of secure, live migration and the enhancements to network and CPU resource management in Oracle VM Server for SPARC 2.1 is an exciting milestone for our development teams and our customers," said Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president Linux and Virtualization Engineering, Oracle. “With these enhancements, customers can take advantage of an enterprise class virtualization solution that is fully integrated and optimized with the operating system and hardware to not only keep their datacenters performing efficiently and cost-effectively, but also to improve application service levels in even the most demanding environments."

- “Oracle VM Server for SPARC demonstrates the tremendous benefits of hardware and software engineered to work together," said Bill Nesheim, vice president Oracle Solaris Engineering, Oracle. "This release offers customers a new level of flexibility in efficiently deploying enterprise workloads on the SPARC T-series family of systems and demonstrates Oracle´s ongoing commitment to innovation in SPARC and Oracle Solaris. Oracle VM Server for SPARC, the SPARC T-series family of systems, and Oracle Solaris, together with the lifecycle management capabilities of Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center, offer an unmatched foundation for deploying a wide range of enterprise applications."

Supporting Resources

- Oracle Virtualization : http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/index.htm
- Oracle VM Server for SPARC : http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/oraclevm/oracle-vm-server-for-sparc-068923.html
- Oracle VM Server for SPARC Data Sheet : http://www.oracle.com/us/oraclevm-sparc-ds-073441.pdf
- Oracle VM Server for SPARC software download. Terms, conditions and restrictions apply. : http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/vm/downloads/index.html
- SPARC T-series servers : http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/servers/sparc-enterprise/t-series/index.html
- Oracle Solaris : http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/solaris/index.html
- Oracle´s Virtualization Blog and Twitter : http://blogs.oracle.com/virtualization/
- Connect with Oracle Solaris via Facebook (http://facebook.com/oraclesolaris) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/ORCL_Solaris) :

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