May 8th, 2008
Virtualization discussion with Oracle
I recently had a chance to chat with Oracle’s vice president of Linux engineering, Wim Coekaerts, and senior director of product marketing, Monica Kumar, about Oracles virtualization efforts and a bit about the philosophy behind the company’s efforts. In summary, Oracle sees virtualization technology as just another tool organizations can use to increase the performance, reliability, scalability, agility and/or manageability of their IT infrastructure. Oracle would suggest that an organization’s focus should be on efficiently and effectively getting their work accomplished rather than an intense focus on the tools that do that work.
What tools does Oracle have to address organizations’ requirements?
If we use the Kusnetzky Group Model as a guide, Oracle offers a broad portfolio of server-focused tools. Here’s how their virtualization product portfolio looks
| Virtualization Category | Oracle Products |
| Access Virtualization | N/A |
| Application Virtualization | Oracle Applicaiton Server |
| Processing Virtualization | Oracle VM, Real Applicaition Clusters |
| Storage Virtualization | Oracle Cluster Filesystem for Linux |
| Network Virtualization | N/A |
| Management of Virtualized Resources | Many products to manage applications, databases, application servers, virtual servers and clusters |
When Oracle’s portfolio of system software, applicaiton development, and middleware are reviewed, it is clear that for the most part the company has implemented quite a number of virtualization technologies. These technologies were integrated into Oracle’s products rather than being offered as separate products, however.
Oracles Goals for Virtualization
Oracle sees itself as part of the virtualization community with a strong focus on brining that technology into the enterprise datacenter in an easy to use, easy to deploy, easy to manage fashion. This is both a strength and a weakness. If an organization is largely an Oracle shop, Oracle’s approach makes sense and allows the deployment of new technology in a very managable way. If an organization has a mixed environment or has little Oracle software, then a selection of individual virtualization technology products might be a better choice.
Is your organization using Oracle’s approach? What tangible benefits has your organization realized through the use of Oracle’s technology?
Daniel Kusnetzky is a member of the senior management team of The 451 Group. He is responsible for research and publications on a broad array of technology topics. He examines emerging technology trends, vendor strategies, research and development issues, and end-user integration requirements. You can follow Dan on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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