Updated Xen Hypervisor: Xen is updated to Release 4.1.2.

New Dom0 Kernel: The Dom0 kernel is now the same Oracle Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel 2 (UEK2) as used in Oracle Linux, for complete binary compatibility with drivers supported in Oracle Linux. Due to the specialized nature of the Oracle VM Dom0 environment (as opposed to the more general purpose Oracle Linux environment) some Linux drivers may not be appropriate to support in the context of Oracle VM, even if the driver is fully compatible with the UEK2 kernel in Oracle Linux. Do not install any additional drivers unless directed to do so by Oracle Support Services.

Jumbo Frames Support: Fully supports different MTU sizes. See Managing Bonded Interfaces for information on setting the network MTU size.

LUN Resizing: A LUN (either used as a storage repository or a server pool file system) also resizes the OCFS2 file system.

Backup/Restore Access to OCFS2 Storage Repositories: Present OCFS2 storage repositories as NFS shares to enable access to external tools in order to back up and copy storage repository contents. See Enabling Storage Repository Back Ups for more information on enabling back ups of storage repositories.

Move OCFS2 Repositories Between Server Pools: Remove an OCFS2 storage repository from one server pool and add it to another. The process of moving a storage repository from one server pool to another has been streamlined to facilitate easier disaster recovery and more storage agility.

Multipath Boot from SAN: Oracle VM Server can be installed to perform boot from multipath SAN without requiring any type of local storage.

Create Virtual Machine Templates: Virtual machines can be cloned as templates, templates can be used to create other templates, and a template can be created in a similar way as creating a virtual machine using a wizard. See Creating a Virtual Machine Template for information on creating virtual machine templates.

Move or Clone Virtual Machines and Templates: Moving or cloning a virtual machine or template (including the configuration information, disk resources, storage and networking). See Cloning a Virtual Machine or Template, Moving a Virtual Machine Template , and Moving a Virtual Machine Template for more information on moving and cloning virtual machines and templates.

Hot Add vCPUs: Add virtual CPUs on the fly to a running virtual machine. See Editing a Virtual Machine for information on editing a virtual machine and adding vCPUs to a running virtual machine.

Discover Multiple Oracle VM Servers Using Hostnames and IPs: Discover Oracle VM Servers by entering or pasting in multiple hostname or IP addresses in a text field, instead of entering each IP address individually. See Discovering Oracle VM Servers for information on discovering Oracle VM Servers.

Virtual Machine Keyboard Mapping: Support for keyboard mapping for different languages for each individual virtual machine, not just for the server pool. See Creating a Virtual Machine for information on the keyboard mapping when creating a virtual machine.

Virtual Machine Console: If the a virtual machine console is in use by another user, you can take over control of the virtual machine console. See Connecting to a Virtual Machine for information on the virtual machine console.

User Interface Enhancements: Significant user interface enhancements improve ease of use, make work flows more intuitive, and reduce the amount of clicks required to perform tasks. See Using Oracle VM Manager for information on the Oracle VM Manager user interface.

Drag and Drop: Objects can be dragged and dropped in the user interface. See Drag and Drop for information using the drag and drop feature.

Anti-Affinity Support: Define which virtual machines cannot reside on the same Oracle VM Servers. Use this feature to achieve better availability by ensuring that critical resources do not reside on a shared single point of failure. See Anti-Affinity Groups for information on anti-affinity.

Change Oracle VM Agent Password: The Oracle VM Agent password for all Oracle VM Servers in a server pool can be changed from Oracle VM Manager. See Changing Oracle VM Agent Passwords on Oracle VM Servers for information on how to change the Oracle VM Agent password.

Maintain Oracle VM Manager Identity After Reinstall: See Installing Oracle VM Manager for information on how to reinstall Oracle VM Manager and maintain the previous UUID.

User Interface: Improved wizards to allow smooth operation and closely match operational needs.

Virtual Machines: Explicitly set maximum memory when creating virtual machines. Flexibility to update virtual disk attributes. Choose thick or thin provision. CDROM dynamic update. Virtual machine console does not require username/password. See Managing Virtual Machines for information these new virtual machine features.

Live Migration Assistant: During live migration, only allowed target Oracle VM Servers can be selected in the Live Migration dialog box. An additional section entitled Why don't I see other servers to migrate to? shows why migrating to a given server is not possible. Anti-affinity and hardware factors such as CPU family are taken into account.

Maximum Guest Memory: The new Create Virtual Machine wizard contains a maximum memory setting. This is the maximum amount of RAM you can configure for the running virtual machine.

Updated Xen 4.0 Hypervisor: More efficient power management capabilities, broader hardware support, and better performance, scalability and security for both hardware virtualized and paravirtualized guests.

Updated Dom0 Linux Kernel with Newer Drivers: Better hardware support for higher performance, with the latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel.

Improved Scalability: Capable of supporting Oracle VM Servers with up to 160 CPUs and 2TB memory.

Updated OCFS2 1.8 Cluster File System: Instant clone support in OCFS2 1.8 enables significantly faster virtual machine provisioning and cloning.

Support for OVF: Use Oracle VM Manager to import a broad range of Open Virtualization Format (OVF) based software assemblies produced by Oracle to accelerate application deployment. See Assemblies for information on working with assemblies.

Network Configuration and Management: All Oracle VM Server logical network configuration and management is now performed using Oracle VM Manager, for example, NIC port bonding, and configuring VLAN Networks. See Managing Networks for information on network management in Oracle VM Manager.

Storage Configuration and Management: The Oracle VM Storage Connect framework enables Oracle VM Manager to directly access the resources and functionality of existing storage systems, supporting native storage services such as SAN or NFS storage creation, deletion, expansion. This allows Oracle VM Manager to automatically discover available storage and create new storage repositories, or to map raw storage directly to virtual machines. See Managing Storage for information on storage management.

Resource Information: Performance statistics are available for CPU, memory, disk and network for each physical Oracle VM Server and virtual machine. Events are displayed for each physical and virtual object, such as port up/down status. IP address and other configuration information is displayed directly in the user interface.

Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS) for Capacity Management: DRS provides real-time monitoring of Oracle VM Server utilization with the goal to rebalance a server pool to provide consistent resources to the running virtual machines. DRS migrates load away from heavily-loaded Oracle VM Servers to less-loaded Oracle VM Servers.

Distributed Power Management (DPM) to Optimize Server Pool for Minimum Power Consumption: DPM complements DRS to reduce the Oracle VM Servers in a server pool when there are periods of low resource utilization. DPM can automatically add capacity as needed when resource utilization increases.

User Interface: Based on the latest Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF), Oracle VM Manager now includes a fully interactive tree view and automatic refresh to show the real-time state of the physical and virtual environment. See Using Oracle VM Manager for information on using the new user interface.

Virtual Machines: Specify the boot order (for example: disk, CDROM) to simplify installs. Directly attach raw storage or virtual disks (vdisks). See Managing Virtual Machines for information on virtual machines.