Virtualizing the Oracle Database
Some people are surprised to learn that the Oracle database is extremely well suited to being virtualized with VMware technology. A well-tuned Oracle database will not make excessive demands on I/O and storage, as it will instead make efficient use of its in-memory cache. This cache, called the Oracle System Global Area or SGA, will commonly allow up to 99% of data requests to be satisfied within memory, and with no I/O activity. Similarly, the Oracle SGA will store previously executed SQL statements, again resulting in effective and memory based processing. In reality, a large memory footprint is a much more common characteristic of an Oracle database than demanding extensive I/O and storage access.
This resource profile fits well within VMware ESX hosts, in part because VMware development teams have specifically targeted this type of workload. The recently released VMware ESX 3.5 allows up to 64GB of memory to be used for each virtual machine, and up to 256GB total on many physical hosts.
VMware ESX 3.5 also takes unique advantage of another common Oracle optimization technique—using large pages. Oracle database instances that access large pages can see performance benefits of up to 20% though improved efficiency in allocating and freeing memory. However, other available x86 hypervisors don’t take advantage of this feature, so that performance gain is only achievable using VMware ESX hosts.
Failover and Manageability of the Virtualized Oracle Database
Oracle DBAs know that providing inexpensive and easy-to-manage failover for a database is one of the most challenging tasks in IT today. Active/Passive solutions tend to be expensive and often require special purpose software or hardware to implement. Active/Active solutions, such Oracle Real Applications Clusters (RAC), introduce a level of sophistication in maintenance that often equates to hiring or training new and expensive manpower in the IT team.
Using VMware High Availability (HA) to protect the critical availability of Oracle databases provides a low-cost option that is simple enough that it can be seamlessly applied to every database in an enterprise. Alternatively, VMware HA can be used as a backup solution to complement existing database availability solutions already in place in your environment.
The extensive experience of our large customer base has shown that Oracle database workloads can be effectively mixed with the other common workloads of an IT enterprise, such as Web servers and application tiers, and therefore the overall resource consumption of each VMware ESX host is consumed in a more uniform way. You can use VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and VMware VMotion capabilities of VMware Infrastructure to automate the live migration of Oracle databases to maintain a consistent resource consumption rate across a cluster of VMware ESX hosts, with little to no requirement for manual intervention.
Maintain High Availability without Duplicate Hardware
VMware technology makes it possible to ensure high levels of availability for Oracle environments without the cost of identical servers, the complexity of rebuilding clusters when hardware is upgraded, or the difficulties of testing clustered physical systems. This approach gives you a viable alternative to expensive 3rd-party failover and clustering solutions that provides the following benefits:
- Automated failover protection—With VMware technology, failed Oracle instances on one VMware-enabled server host can be restarted on another host server within minutes.
- Rapid disaster recovery—Many customers rely on VMware for disaster recovery, and we will soon release tools that manage and automate recovery from site-wide outages.
- Zero-downtime maintenance—Use VMware technology to migrate live, running Oracle workloads from one physical host to another with no interruption in service.
- LAN-free backup—VMware technology enables LAN-free backup of Oracle environments from a centralized proxy server, eliminating backup traffic from the network.
Streamline IT Management Tasks
VMware provides a robust set of management and automation technologies that can help you simplify management & provisioning of Oracle environments that include a heterogeneous mix of application versions, operating systems and server hardware. Capabilities include:
- Simplified testing and troubleshooting—Re-create your production environment instantly and use advanced snapshot capabilities to roll back to a prior safe state.
- Rapid provisioning—Use virtual machine templates and wizard-based provisioning to quickly deploy fully configured virtual machines that are ready to run in minutes.
- Automated load balancing—Monitor utilization and automate the allocation of resources based on policies that reflect business needs and changing priorities.
Rely on a Production-proven Platform
VMware offers a mature, customer-proven virtualization platform on which to base your Oracle applications and databases. More than 85% of VMware customers deploy VMware in production IT environments, and 54% of customers use VMware as their standard platform for delivering enterprise applications.
Read the Customer Results Survey
Additional Resources
Oracle Database Scalability in VMware ESX
In this paper we demonstrate that when running multiple virtual machines with Oracle database workloads on VMware ESX, the individual performance remains close to that of the Oracle database workload in a single virtual machine, while CPU utilization scales in a near-linear fashion.
Download the Oracle Database Scalability in VMware ESX whitepaper
Deployment of Oracle Databases on VMware Infrastructure
This guide, based on the deployment of Oracle Database products on VMware Infrastructure performed in the VMware lab, provides the groundwork for more powerful and complex deployments of Oracle Database products on VMware Infrastructure.
Download the Guide Now (requires registration)
Oracle Support for VMware Virtualization
Oracle has a support policy that hundreds of VMware customers are using to deploy Oracle applications and databases in development as well as in production. Please refer to article 249212.1 on Oracle MetaLink for details.
Virtualize Your Oracle Landscape
Find out how VMware Infrastructure 3 simplifies IT environments so that Oracle IT administrators can leverage their storage, network, and computing resources to control costs and respond quickly to changing business needs.
Learn More about Virtualizing Your Oracle Landscape
Ten Reasons Why Oracle Databases Run Best on VMware
One of the best-kept secrets is just how well Oracle performs on VMware ESX. This VROOM blog entry from the VMware performance team highlights the top ten most important features for getting the best database performance in your virtual infrastructure.
VMTN Oracle Discussion Forum
We encourage you to join the VMTN Oracle Discussion Forum to share and learn about best practices for virtualizing Oracle products using VMware technology.
