Oracle VirtualBox is a powerful and convenient way to manage your virtual machine instances in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). With VirtualBox 7.1, you can now reset, clone, and view performance metrics for VM instances hosted on OCI. This blog details these capabilities and steps you through how to use them.

Cloning or resetting instances

Cloning or resetting instances on OCI can be done through the VirtualBox Manager interface, once connected to an OCI profile. Selecting an instance under the cloud profile and right clicking will display these features. Resetting an instance will first power off the instance and then release its compute resources. Then, the instance will power on in the same fault domain it was powered off in and will become available again.

Right click the OCI instance and select Reset to perform a reset on the instance
Right click the OCI instance and select Reset to perform a reset on the instance.

 

Cloning an instance will take a snapshot of the selected virtual machine and create a clone of that machine using separate compute resources. You will be asked to name the clone.

Right click the OCI instance and select Clone to begin the cloning process
Right click the OCI instance and select Clone to begin the cloning process.

Viewing performance metrics

In addition to improved control of OCI instances, Oracle VirtualBox 7.1 can monitor their performance. Selecting an instance in a cloud profile and then changing from the Details tab to the Activity tab will display performance metrics for that instance.

Left click the list icon on the right side of the OCI instance and select Activity to view performance metrics
Left click the list icon on the right side of the OCI instance and select Activity to view performance metrics.

All performance metrics available for local virtual machines are available for instances hosted on OCI. Performance metrics include:

  • CPU Load
  • RAM Usage
  • Network – Receive Rate
  • Network – Transmit Rate
  • Disk IO – Write Rate
  • Disk IO – Read Rate
The performance metrics screen for an OCI instance shows a variety of hardware and network performance metrics
The performance metrics screen for an OCI instance shows a variety of hardware and network performance metrics.

The addition of these features allows for VirtualBox to interact with the cloud in ways that other virtualization platforms cannot. This makes VirtualBox a feature-rich platform for application testing on both local virtual machines and cloud machines. You can import, export, view performance, and manage virtual machines between the cloud and a local desktop efficiently and in one place. This integration enables developers to quickly test and deploy applications across different operating systems and environments.

With VirtualBox, virtual machines can be tested on both the cloud and locally. Transferring them between platforms is simple.
With VirtualBox, virtual machines can be tested on both the cloud and locally. Transferring them between platforms is simple.

 

Download VirtualBox 7.1 and give these features a try. For more information about the release, visit Oracle VirtualBox Release Notes for Release 7.1.

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