Upcoming End date of OVM Premier Support. It is time to consider KVM + OLVM (especially for the new projects)

This is for the ones who is considering a virtualization solution for new projects.

Especially for the ones considering Oracle Virtıalization... 

Usually when we say Oracle virtualization, we mean Oracle VM Server, but actually that was in the past. Now we have an alternative to OVM..  It is KVM (Kernel Based Virtual Machine).

KVM is actually an open source virtualization technology that turns Linux into a hypervisor. 

I firstly used this KVM in ODA X7-2 S and M environments. At that time, we had some limitations though.. For instance, there were no capacity-on-demand option for databases and application that are running on Guest KVM Machines.

However; now we have the cpu pinning/ hard partitioning / capacity-on-demand option in KVM!

Note that,  using hard partitioning to limit Oracle product software licensing still adds some restrictions such as live migration and scheduling policies available on Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager.

If you want to check out some of my advantures on ODA and KVM, you can read the blogposts pointed by the following urls.  :)

https://ermanarslan.blogspot.com/2017/07/oda-kvm-virtualization-for-oda-x6-2sx6.html

https://ermanarslan.blogspot.com/2017/10/oda-x6-2m-virtualization-with-kvm-real.html

https://ermanarslan.blogspot.com/2017/11/oda-x7-2-closer-look-oracle-database.html

https://ermanarslan.blogspot.com/2017/09/oda-x6-2m-virt-manager-display.html

Also note that, Oracle Linux KVM is the same hypervisor used in Oracle Cloud. You can read the related  article in the following url to get more info : https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/olvm-datasheet-nov2019.pdf

At the moment, KVM has a support contract advantage too.. KVM is offered under Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM). Note that OLVM is the virtualization management platform that can be easily deployed to configure, monitor, and manage KVM environments.

So, KVM is offered under Oracle Linux Premier limited support.  So no need to purchase support for the virtual layer seperately.. 

Another thing that motivates us to prefer KVM is the upcoming end date of OVM premier support.

As per Lifetime Support Policy document; Oracle VM Premier Support period will end in March, 2021. Therefore, the users of OVM would need to buy additional extended support. 

As I mentioned, alternative to OVM is KVM, offered under Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM). 

Here is the key benefits of using KVM and OLVM -> 

• Complete server virtualization and management solution with zero license cost
• Single software distribution for Oracle Linux OS or Oracle Linux KVM 
• Speeds application deployment with Oracle Virtual Appliances
• Ksplice integration to patch kernel, QEMU, and user space libraries with no service interruption
• Hard Partitioning support enables efficient Oracle application software licensing
• Full Stack Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager
• Path to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure with a common hypervisor

So, we advise our customers to use KVM which is offered under Oracle Linux Premier limited support, especially for their new virtualization projects. This is the purpose of this blog post actually. Final decision is still yours :)