Oracle VM is a platform that provides a fully equipped environment with all the latest benefits of virtualization technology. Oracle VM enables you to deploy operating systems and application software within a supported virtualization environment. The components of Oracle VM are shown in Figure 2.1, “Oracle VM Architecture”.
Oracle VM Manager: Provides the command line interface or shell, as well as the graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI is an Application Development Framework (ADF) web application you use simply through your browser to manage Oracle VM Servers, virtual machines, and resources. Use Oracle VM Manager to:
Configure and manage Oracle VM Servers
Configure and manage networks
Configure and manage storage
Configure and manage resources such as virtual machine images, virtual machine templates, assemblies, and installation media
Create virtual machines from installation media, a virtual machine template, an assembly, or a virtual machine image
Manage virtual machines, including powering on and off, deleting, and live migrating
Import virtual machines created with Oracle VM or another solution for server virtualization
Oracle VM Server: A managed virtualization environment providing a lightweight, secure, server platform which runs virtual machines. At least one Oracle VM Server is required, but several are needed to take advantage of clustering. Oracle VM Server is based upon an updated version of the underlying Xen hypervisor technology, and includes Oracle VM Agent. It also includes a Linux kernel with support for a broad array of devices, file systems, and software RAID volume management. The Linux kernel is run as dom0 to manage one or more domU virtual machines, each of which could be Linux, Oracle Solaris, or Microsoft Windows.