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Oracle Linux KVM
April 3, 2020
Announcing Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager 4.3
Oracle is pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager, release 4.3. This server virtualization management platform can be easily deployed to configure, monitor, and manage an Oracle Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) environment with enterprise-grade performance and support from Oracle. This release is based on the 4.3.6 release of the open source oVirt project.
New Features with Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager 4.3
In addition to the base virtualization management features required to operate your data center, notable features added with the Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager 4.3 release include:
- Self-Hosted Engine: The oVirt Self-Hosted Engine is a hyper-converged solution in which the oVirt engine runs on a virtual machine on the hosts managed by that engine. The virtual machine is created as part of the host configuration, and the engine is installed and configured in parallel to the host configuration process. The primary benefit of the Self-Hosted Engine is that it requires less hardware to deploy an instance of the Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager as the engine runs as a virtual machine, not on physical hardware. Additionally, the engine is configured to be highly available. If the Oracle Linux host running the engine virtual machine goes into maintenance mode, or fails unexpectedly, the virtual machine will be migrated automatically to another Oracle Linux host in the environment.
- Gluster File System 6.0: oVirt has been integrated with GlusterFS, an open source scale-out distributed filesystem, to provide a hyper-converged solution where both compute and storage are provided from the same hosts. Gluster volumes residing on the hosts are used as storage domains in oVirt to store the virtual machine images. Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager is run as the Self Hosted Engine within a virtual machine on these hosts. GlusterFS 6.0 is released as an Oracle Linux 7 program.
- Virt-v2v: The virt-v2v tool converts a single guest from another hypervisor to run on Oracle Linux KVM. It can read Linux and Windows Virtual Machines running on Oracle VM or other hypervisors, and convert them to KVM machines managed by Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager.
- New guest OS support: Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager guest operating system support has been extended to include Oracle Linux 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, CentOS 8, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12 SP5 and SLES 15 SP1.
- oVirt 4.3 features and bug fixes:
- Improved performance when running Windows as a guest OS. Included with this release are the latest Oracle VirtIO Drivers for Microsoft Windows.
- Higher level of security with TLSv1 and TLSv1.1 protocols now disabled for vdsm communications.
- Numerous engine, vdsm, UI, and bug fixes.
More information on these features can be found in the Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager Document Library which has been updated for this release. Visit the Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager Training website for videos, documents, other useful links, and further information on setting up and managing this solution.
Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager allows enterprise customers to continue supporting their on-premise data center deployments with the KVM hypervisor available on Oracle Linux 7 Update 7 with the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 5. This 4.3 release is an update release for Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager 4.2.
Getting Started
Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager 4.3 can be installed from the Oracle Linux yum server or the Oracle Unbreakable Linux Network. Customers that have already deployed Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager 4.2 can upgrade to 4.3 using these same sites. Two new channels have been created in the Oracle Linux 7 repositories that users will access to install or update Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager:
- oVirt 4.3 - base packages required for Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager
- oVirt 4.3 Extra Packages - additional packages for Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager
Oracle Linux 7 Update 7 hosts can be installed with installation media (ISO images) available from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud. Step-by-step instructions to download the Oracle Linux 7 Update 7 ISO can be found on the Oracle Linux Community website. Using the "Minimal Install" option during the installation process sets up a base KVM system which can then be updated using the KVM Utilities channel in the Oracle Linux 7 repositories. These KVM enhancements and other important packages for your Oracle Linux KVM host can be installed from the Oracle Linux yum server and the Oracle Unbreakable Linux Network:
- Latest - Latest packages released for Oracle Linux 7
- UEK Release 5 - Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 5 packages for Oracle Linux 7
- KVM Utilities - KVM enhancements (QEMU and libvirt) for Oracle Linux 7
- Optional Latest - Latest optional packages released for Oracle Linux 7
- Gluster 6 Packages - Latest Gluster 6 packages for Oracle Linux 7
Both Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager and Oracle Linux can be downloaded, used, and distributed free of charge and all updates and errata are freely available.
Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager Support
Support for Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager is available to customers with an Oracle Linux Premier Support subscription. Refer to Oracle Linux 7 License Information User Manual for information about Oracle Linux support levels.
Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager Resources
If I understand it correctly, DB19c is the only product that is officially supported to run on the OLVM platform. When do you expect other Oracle products such as the EBS suite to become certified? Currently, OLVM is not listed as a virtualization platform on the certification tab in Oracle Support.
Thank you,
Onno van der Poel
DB is one of the few application teams that do certify down to the hypervisor layer. And in addition to 19c, 18c and 12cR1 are on the latest certification list with Oracle Linux KVM.
Other applications like Fusion Middleware test to the guest OS level and also support the OS in a virtualized environment. I will confirm the same with the EBS team
We are looking into this option.
Please get in touch with me directly or reach out to the partner team to discuss your use case further.
What is the difference between Oracle VM and Oracle linux VM?
Thanks Asif
At a very high level:
Oracle VM
* Xen hypervisor
* Custom build Manager
* Oracle VM Premier Support
Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager
* KVM hypervisor
* Open Source based Manager
* Oracle Linux Premier Support
I will email you to discuss further if you are interested.
is there an option to upgrade from OLVM 4.2.8 to OLVM 4.3.6 ? And if so, can you please provide documentation link.
Thanks
Antoine
Thanks for the message.
Yes, there is an upgrade option from OLVM 4.2.8 to OLVM 4.3.6. The best starting point in the documentation is here: https://docs.oracle.com/en/virtualization/oracle-linux-virtualization-manager/getstart/engine-upgrade.html
Let us know if you need anything else.
John
there are any guide to move from OVM 3.4.6 to Oracle LVM 4.3?
Another question the support matrix is the same?
Many Thanks
I would like to have documents concerning this project with a comparison with the proxmox tool the advantages of olvm compared to proxmox what I need as equipment for the implementation of the project
the limit of olvm
https://docs.oracle.com/en/virtualization/oracle-linux-virtualization-manager/index.html
And some good training videos here:
https://bit.ly/2PTvubM
Hope this helps you get OLVM installed and to build your comparison.
You can check out the migration document here:
https://community.oracle.com/docs/DOC-1036958
Oracle VM and Oracle Linux KVM/OLVM are separate products covered under the OVM or OL lifecycle documents.
Is thre any wayt to report Bugs related to OLVM - 4.3?
We are currently getting this problem aredy report into Redhat Bugzilla
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1569593
Is there a security whitepaper available for Oracle Linux KVM similar to what is available for OVM? Or a security hardening guide focused on KVM?
We do have a Security Guide for Oracle Linux 7:
https://docs.oracle.com/en/operating-systems/oracle-linux/7/security/
Take a look at this and I will connect with you directly to follow-up.
John
I have a question on supported database release on oracle KVM vm's. can i run only 12r1 ,18c and 19c?
Oracle database is only certificated on linux 7 on kvm guest?
Thanks
actually Oracle Database releases certified to run on top of Oracle Linux KVM are 12cR1, 18c and 19c.
That said, for the OS release you can check the Oracle Database documentation.
Thanks
Simon
GlusterFS are used as storage domains to store the virtual machine images.
Is it also possible to connect to the GlusterFS from VMs to use as storage by the processes?
technically is possible and feasible (by iSCSI or NFS) but what is the use-case ?
Getting your VM virtual-disks created and presented to the VM could be easier.
Simon
The use case is to take advantage of the GlusterFS configured to OVLM, to create additional volumes for store the files of some applications, instead of configure a second GlusterFS.
The question is whether creating additional volumes in the same GlusterFS used by OVLM, can create problems for OVLM.
Than you.
you can create Gluster Volumes, no problem at all.
On each of them you can then create a "Storage Domain" where to guest your Virtual Machines.
Simon
it's not more OEL, it's OL :)
That said, OLVM 4.3 supports OL 7.7 and higher updates for OL7 (so OL8 is excluded).
Thanks
Simon