Comments on: What Linux distribution should you use for Oracle virtualized on VMware

By: Ben K

Ben K — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:15:14 +0000

Yes, PVSCSI for SLES 11 SP1 has been around for years, as with Hot Add.

My organization has SLES 11 SP1 licenses (pre and post 4 U2). We just need to decide / figure out how we’re going to migrate to the “VMware” version of SLES 11 (which has a VMware optimized kernel).

By: J

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 23:54:04 +0000

Sorry if I got something wrong, but I checked the VMware HCL list before posting the article (though I had written in a month or two before…

Really, I have nothing against SuSE, and if PVSCSI is now supported, I’m definitely interested.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention – I’ll check it out and update the blog as appropriate.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:39:52 +0000

SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP1 and higher
- Storage: PVSCSI IS supported

Why is this not mentioned, as this was common knowledge, when this article was written?

By: J

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 17:06:32 +0000

RAC runs approximately 27k per 2 cores (1 Oracle licenses) on top of Oracle EE database. That plays a large factor in the decision. Instead my clients typically leverage RMAN and Veeam to backups of the database and the VMs, respectively. With Veeam (which has a list price of under $2k a socket I believe) they can bring up any of their backups of their VMs directly from the compressed de-duped backup in less than 10 minutes. With Veeam and RMAN database backups the clients feel they’ve mitigated the risk of corruption at a lower cost point, but yes, one that will require some downtime. Veeam also allows you to test each backup automatically by bringing up the VM and allowing you to run automated scripts against it. This would allow you to mitigate the risk of a bad kernel or corrupt boot block, with no downtime.

You can also leverage the snapshot and cloning functionality of VMware to clone your production VM and install your new kernel without any risk to your production system.

By: dan

dan — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 12:39:59 +0000

Excellent post. You’ve compiled the facts very neatly. We are evaluating the idea of moving to Oracle on RHEL. In evaluating rhel on vmware even with all the ha and fault tolerant options offered, the OS is still a single point of failure ie. If you had a bad kernel or corrupt boot block, you would be down the entire time of the recovery. Why would you not choose RAC when deciding to deploy oracle on vmware?

By: Vmware Appliances | Computer Blog | Computer Tips and Tricks | Everything you need to know

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 20:08:36 +0000

[...] SLES ‘ If you’re running vSphere 4.0U2 or later and are active on qualifying Vmware vSphere Software and Services SKUs, you can run an unlimited number of virtual machines and get [...]

By: J

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:52:50 +0000

Thanks!

By: Alternative opinions about Oracle Linux vs. RHEL… « Ukrainian Oracle User Group

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 06:22:47 +0000

[...] What Linux distribution should you use for Oracle virtualized on VMware [...]

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:03:27 +0000

Hi.

Cool post. I’ve put a link to this at the end of my post. It’s good for people to get multiple sides of the story.

Cheers

Tim…