I am an Oracle Specialist and manage Oracle databases. Oracle VM is being used in test-based environments, dedicated services. Being a product expert and an engineer, I help customers work with Oracle. I have seen this solution in customer organizations that are in excess of 10,000 users.
Founder and President at a training & coaching company with 1-10 employees
Separates your clusters to get your licenses agreement in scope
Pros and Cons
- "The biggest advantage of Oracle VM is that you can separate your clusters to get your licenses agreement in scope."
- "The performance could be better because I need to purchase a lot of CPUs to perform in the workbench."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The biggest advantage of Oracle VM is that you can separate your clusters to get your licenses agreement in scope.
Oracle VM has a bigger fence next to VMware in size, so when you install or migrate day-to-day services with Oracle-related applications, it will always look better, or be a better fit in an Oracle VM environment.
You will have a faster migration using Oracle VM because it is an Oracle product.
What needs improvement?
The performance could be better because I need to purchase a lot of CPUs to perform in the workbench.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Oracle VM for many years.
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalable of Oracle VM is good if you have a good link.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support at Oracle has been better in the past. Currently, you get first-level support so it takes you a long time to get the correct level of support.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Oracle VM is as straightforward as it can be taking me 20 minutes.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My customers are all working with enterprise edition licenses with Oracle.
What other advice do I have?
For Oracle-based environments, it is always better to use Oracle software because of the integration.
I advise people when they are on their first visualization layers to go to Oracle first and see if that is performing. Otherwise, if you go to other virtualization layers your whole cloud stack will be licensed as well on one domain.
When you install Oracle VM in a VMware environment, it can have mismatches with libraries that are not correctly compiled. It is important to have a dedicated service or an Oracle VM to test if it is working and it's not the hypervisor that is causing the concern.
I rate Oracle VM an 8 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Cloud Managed Services Engineer at kyndryl
Easy to set up, scalable, and stable platform for virtualization
Pros and Cons
- "Virtualization platform that's easy to set up, and has good scalability and stability."
- "Productivity in Oracle VM could still be improved, and an additional feature to make the product better is compatibility with Kubernetes and other modern technologies."
What is most valuable?
I found the mobile manager in Oracle VM a wonderful feature, in comparison with the command line interface.
What needs improvement?
There's room for improvement in terms of productivity in Oracle VM, because I find Nutanix has better productivity.
Oracle VM can have future improvements through the addition of newer features.
I'm also looking forward to a newer product version for Oracle VM, including making it compatible with Kubernetes and other modern technologies.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Oracle VM is so stable, that I find the databases are much better in Oracle Linux and Oracle VM.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Oracle VM is a scalable product.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support from Oracle is wonderful. They provide best in class support, which I experience whenever I talk to their support team.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup for Oracle VM was easy. It wasn't a complex process.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Oracle VM pricing is expensive, because it runs on the Oracle database, and the Oracle database runs very smoothly on Oracle VM and Oracle Linux, and this can make pricing more expensive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I was able to evaluate Oracle Solaris Virtualization that only runs on SPARC servers, and only runs on Oracle Solaris.
What other advice do I have?
I'm working with Oracle VM, and I'm an administrator for it.
The customers use Oracle VM in their companies, and they're given ownership, so I'm currently working with other customers on their active assets.
My suggestion to people looking into implementing Oracle VM is that they should choose Oracle Exadata, instead of the Dell server, Lenovo server, or other products, because upgrading those takes a healthy amount of time, and they also have some vulnerability with other vendor products.
This is why I'm suggesting an integrated product like Oracle Exadata, which runs on Oracle Solaris, which runs on Oracle Linux, and it also has a database function, and it's completely integrated, and has built-in networking and record storage.
I would rate Oracle VM a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Senior Oracle Database Administrator at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Stable, open-source, and the integration is good
Pros and Cons
- "It's quite stable."
- "The usage could be easier, and more user-friendly."
What is our primary use case?
The main use case of this solution is integration. The integration of the database and compatibility with the affiliate in terms of license management. This will reduce the cost of the license.
It is the same use case as vSan except that you can partition the applications and it forces you to license the processor, as opposed to the server.
What needs improvement?
I would like to simplify the processes to implement. When you want to implement Oracle, the steps that you perform could be simplified.
The usage could be easier, and more user-friendly.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Oracle VM for a few months, we started using it in November.
We are using version 3.4.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's quite stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have 10 users in our organization. It's a new product.
We are still in the testing phase. We are looking forward to observing its behavior. If it behaves well and there are no major incidents that give us or the support team issues, we will continue to plan ahead and implement it.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support could be faster.
How was the initial setup?
It is very difficult to implement.
It is not user-friendly, so you need a bit of skill to deploy it.
When compared to other solutions, it is quite complex. The complexity depends on the individual environment.
What about the implementation team?
For the deployment, you need a consultant and an integrator. It is very difficult to deploy this solution. If you use the server storage, you need a consultant.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Oracle VM is inexpensive. It's open-source, but you pay for support.
Oracle is free of charge, although you have to have a subscription for the support.
What other advice do I have?
Currently, they are trying to improve this solution database and technology. They are trying to upgrade it to make it a more customizable database.
I would certainly recommend this solution to other users who have Oracle applications. It has been customized to optimize this database.
I would rate Oracle VM a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Highly scalable, perfect support, free, and easy to manage
Pros and Cons
- "Its ease of management and simplicity are most valuable. It is free, and you can provision an unlimited number of VMs at no cost for clients. They also provide perfect support."
- "The user interface of the version that we have requires improvement. They have already improved the user interface in the latest version, but we are yet to migrate to that. The new UI is much better. I would like it to be simple. It is serving all of our needs, and I don't think it is necessary to keep adding. We are able to provision a VM in ten minutes, and provisioning it in five minutes will not have any added benefit."
What is our primary use case?
We have a few servers, and I tag them to the storage. Through that, we create VMs by provisioning some RAM, CPU, and storage. The RAM and the CPU get adjusted when we buy more servers to add to the cluster.
We are not using its latest version. We are yet to migrate to its latest version.
How has it helped my organization?
It has saved us millions of dollars by generating many VM's out of a simple server added to a server pool which is highly available.
What is most valuable?
Its ease of management and simplicity are most valuable. It is free, and you can provision an unlimited number of VMs at no cost for clients. They also provide perfect support.
What needs improvement?
The user interface of the version that we have requires improvement. They have already improved the user interface by moving away from OVMM to OVM or KVM which uses the oVirt engine and has a completely new feel for the user interface, but we are yet to migrate to that. The new UI is much better and more intuitive.
I would like it to be simple. It is serving all of our needs, and I don't think it is necessary to keep adding. We are able to provision a VM in ten minutes, and provisioning it in five minutes will not have any added benefit.
Just keep it simple.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for over ten years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable. That's why I've used it for all my clients.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is highly scalable. It can be scaled to any amount that you want. The RAM, CPU, and storage can be easily scaled.
It is suitable for big and small organizations. We have deployed it for financial institutions and banks with lots of users and VMs. They use it for all kinds of things.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have their 24/7 support. The hardware that we're using is Oracle hardware, and it is mandatory that you have the HW support. We also have field delivery engineers for the hardware support and premium support for Oracle Linux and virtualization.
Their support is perfect and wonderful. They respond immediately, but it also depends on the severity.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used a different solution which had license limitations but Oracle VM is free and unlimited VMs can be provisioned at any time if there is adequate compute power.
How was the initial setup?
It is very simple and straightforward. You just need to connect a bunch of servers to the storage, and you're done. For installation, you just download the parts of the software and install them on the server. Once installed, you discover them through the management interface, and that's about it.
The software installation takes about 20 minutes, but it also depends on how many services you are attaching to the storage. Its maintenance involves just upgrades.
What about the implementation team?
We are Oracle Field Engineers and have lots of Specialization around the product.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
All other vendors are selling their licenses to use the VM, but Oracle isn't doing that, which is its biggest advantage.
It is free. All you have to do is get the hardware. You can create an unlimited number of VMs for free. With VMware, you have to purchase licenses for the number of VMs that you want to create. You only pay for their premium support, and even that is optional. I am now learning this product, and we can even do without the support.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We considered the following below:
1. The physical memory supported by Oracle VM is higher
2. No of vCPU supported on guest(VM) is higher
3. Product is free and this is the best part
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others. I have recommended this to many different clients. It is for free, which is its biggest advantage. We are also Oracle partners, so we tend to go for Oracle.
I would rate Oracle VM a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
IT Infrastructure Lead at iConnect IT Business Solutions DMCC
Stable, with good resource management, but needs to allow more access to documentation
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable aspect of the solution is the resource management from the OVM Manager."
- "You need to have a model for documentation available for the users. Right now, if you have to search for some troubleshooting, you need to have Oracle login. Many personnel might not have that login. The reach, the availability of information to the end-user, is not there."
What is our primary use case?
The solution is primarily used for server virtualization. We have opportunities that we want to learn from. For our customers, we recommend this product. We have Oracle databases or Oracle, Linux, or Red Hat Linux to run it on a virtual machine, and Oracle VM fits perfectly into that.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable aspect of the solution is the resource management from the OVM Manager. It makes document management very smooth. The performance is excellent.
What needs improvement?
I'm still evaluating the product and getting to know it.
The only thing I'm finding is that the backup software, which is supporting Oracle's virtualization platform, needs improvement. We're struggling to get a solution that will support my Oracle virtualization environment for backup purposes. I just found one on the internet. I was trying to reach out to that team now, to see how best we can use it. However, if Oracle had a solution to this, that would be ideal.
You need to have a model for documentation available for the users. Right now, if you have to search for some troubleshooting, you need to have Oracle login. Many personnel might not have that login. The reach, the availability of information to the end-user, is not there.
There are some articles that are publicly available, but there are some important documents that are not available to the public. You need to subscribe, or you need to have a licensed copy, some subscription with the product.
Any product, at the end of the day, needs support. When the support or the knowledge base or the information is not available or the documentation is not available for any of this, for the person who is implementing this, it's very difficult for them to get used to this product. They will simply move to another product.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for two or three months now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution certainly is stable. We don't seem to suffer from bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is very easy to scale.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've never reached out to technical support, so I can't speak to their level of service. I tend to handle troubleshooting myself.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have experience with Hyper-V, VMware, and Citrix ZenServers.
The technology is all similar. It's about virtualizing the servers. However, I feel that VMware is much better and much more stable than Oracle VM.
How was the initial setup?
At first, the initial setup was not so straightforward and was rather complex. This is largely due to the fact that we were not aware of the environment and how to use it properly. I believe it will get easier to implement over time.
You need to deploy the server and have the virtualization on top of that. Then you configure and install everything. How long it takes depends on the environment. If it's a small deployment, it may only take about two days. A larger deployment could take as long as six to eight weeks.
I've done a file server deployment, and that only took three days.
You only need one person to deploy the solution.
What about the implementation team?
We are consultants. We assist our customers with implementations.
What other advice do I have?
We're partners with Oracle. We're consultants.
My advice to other potential users is this: nothing is better than planning. It's much in a better way to start a project. That way, you understand how much it is that you need to have or how many servers you require. It seldom matters when you deploy in the virtual environment.
You need to be very hands-on in Linux environments. I come from a Windows background. I am not a Linux user, for the most part. That said, fo this project, I learned Linux.
I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Oracle Consultant & DBA - Cloud Support Engineer at Amazon Web Services
You will have great flexibility in the x86 world. The product needs to improve the backup and snapshot functionality.
Valuable Features
Oracle license compatibility was the deciding factor for us. It's the only way to fulfill the Oracle license policy if you want to virtualize in a x86 environment.
Also, Oracle VM performance is one of the best that I've experienced. And the pre-seeded images that Oracle puts at your disposal makes your life really ease, i.e. you can have an Oracle RAC up and running within two hours with the OVM images.
Improvements to My Organization
I work in a consultancy, so I've deployed several OVM environments always with great results and high customer satisfaction. We've achieved the goal of being in line with the Oracle license, providing customers with better usage of their resources at better cost.
Room for Improvement
The product needs to improve the backup and snapshot functionalities. This is the main disadvantage compared to other hypervisors on the market.
Use of Solution
I've used it for at least eight years since version 2.1 was released.
Deployment Issues
We have had no issues with the deployment.
Stability Issues
We've never found an instability problem with the hypervisor as it is simply rock solid.
On the other hand, the OVM Manager has had some problems and inconsistencies. The best option is to have the OMV Manager virtualized and to recreate it if there are issues as all the relevant info is stored in the hypervisor itself.
Scalability Issues
We have had no issues scaling it to our needs.
Customer Service and Technical Support
Oracle always works well in terms of support, and if you need extra assistance you can escalate your case, but at the moment I have never had to go so deep.
Initial Setup
The hypervisor installation and setup is one of the most simple things that I have ever done. Just boot, select the proper installation method, configure (Linux-like), and you're done.
On the other hand, the Manager can be a little tricky, but the newer versions have become much easier. Just set up your OS and pre-requisites, database, and OVM Manager.
Implementation Team
I've implemented in my own company for internal use and as consultant engineer, I've performed several implementations for clients.
You always can get faster result going with consultancy services as they provide expertise and background from many previous implementations of the product.
ROI
The ROI is very fast.
Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing
OVM has low impact and is licensed on a per-server basis. The cost is very affordable as you only have to pay support.
Other Solutions Considered
We evaluated VMware, Citrix, Hyper-V, and RHEV. The main feature was the "Oracle License Compliant" and after the wide library of images. The stability and efficiency of the hypervisor was always great therefore the previous mentioned factors comes to decide.
Other Advice
It's a great product and becomes better with every release. It is based on the rock solid Xen hypervisor.
It's an easy and great product. You can test it for free and you will have great flexibility in the x86 world. Go for it without doubt.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We perform implementations as consultants.
Snr. Infrastructure Architect at LogicEra
A good native product for Oracle applications and databases
Pros and Cons
- "Cloning is the best feature in Oracle VM."
- "Oracle VM should have centralized storage, without which you can't clone or move one VM to another."
What is most valuable?
Cloning is the best feature in Oracle VM.
What needs improvement?
Oracle VM should have centralized storage, without which you can't clone or move one VM to another. If you have two Oracle KVM hypervisors without central storage and want to replicate a clone from one hypervisor to another, there is no technology to do that.
Oracle VM needs to change or refine its partition system. Oracle OVM takes five minutes to one hour to clone a system.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Oracle VM for seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
As compared to other solutions, Oracle VM is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate Oracle VM a seven out of ten for scalability. Around 500 users were using Oracle VM in my previous organization.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have worked with Hyper-V and VMware.
How was the initial setup?
Oracle VM's initial setup takes around twenty minutes. I rate Oracle VM an eight out of ten for its initial setup.
What about the implementation team?
Since I'm a technical person, it takes half an hour for me to deploy Oracle VM.
What other advice do I have?
Oracle VM is a good native product for Oracle applications and databases.
I rate Oracle VM a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Computer Engineer at NITC: IT Agency of Government of Nepal
A simple solution that is easy to use
Pros and Cons
- "The product is simple and easy to use."
- "The tool's price and stability could be better."
What is most valuable?
The product is simple and easy to use.
What needs improvement?
The tool's price and stability could be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with the solution for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the solution's stability a seven out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have around 150 users for the solution.
How was the initial setup?
The tool's deployment was straightforward. The deployment took around 10 minutes to complete.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We use the product's free version that is not licensed.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate the product a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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