Support for Oracle VM Server for SPARC: Oracle VM Manager can now be used to discover SPARC servers running Oracle VM Server for SPARC, and perform virtual machine management tasks.

New Dom0 Kernel in Oracle VM Server for x86: The Dom0 kernel in Oracle VM Server for x86 has been updated so that it 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.

MySQL Database Support: MySQL Database is used as the bundled database for the Oracle VM Manager management repository for simple installations. Support for an existing Oracle SE/EE Database is still included within the installer so that you can perform a custom installation to take advantage of your existing infrastructure. Simple installation using the bundled MySQL Database is fully supported within production environments.

Discontinued inclusion of Oracle XE Databases: Oracle VM Manager no longer bundles the Oracle XE database as a backend database. If you are currently running Oracle VM Manager using Oracle XE and you intend to upgrade you must first migrate your database to Oracle SE or Oracle EE.

Oracle VM Server Support Tools: A meta-package is provided on the Oracle VM Server ISO enabling you to install packages to assist with support. These packages are not installed automatically as they are Oracle VM Server does not depend on them. Installation of the meta-package and its dependencies may assist with the resolution of support queries and can be installed at your own discretion. Note that the sudo package was previously installed as a dependency for Oracle VM Server, but that this package has now been made a dependency of the ovs-support-tools meta-package. If you require sudo on your Oracle VM Server installations, you should install the ovs-support-tools meta-package.

Oracle VM Command Line Interface (CLI): The new Oracle VM Command Line Interface can be used to perform the same functions as the Oracle VM Manager Web Interface, such as managing all your server pools, servers and guests. The CLI commands can be scripted and run in conjunction with the Web Interface, thus bringing more flexibility to help you deploy and manage an Oracle VM environment. The CLI supports public-key authentication, allowing users to write scripts without embedding passwords, to facilitate secure remote login to Oracle VM Manager. The CLI also includes a full audit log for all commands executed using the facility. See the Oracle VM Command Line Interface User's Guide for information on using the CLI.

Accessibility options: Options to display the UI in a more accessible way for screen readers, improve the contrast, or increase the font size. See Oracle VM Manager user interface Accessibility Features for more information.

Health tab: Monitor the overall health and status of your virtualization environment and view historical statistics such as memory and CPU usage. See Health Tab for information on using the Health tab.

Multi-select of objects: Select one or more objects to perform an action on multiple objects, for example, upgrading multiple Oracle VM Servers in one step, rather than upgrading them individually. See Multi-Select Functionality for information on using the multi-select feature.

Search for objects: In many of the tab management panes and in some of the dialog boxes you can search for objects. This is of particular benefit to large deployments with many objects such as virtual machines or Oracle VM Servers. See Name Filters for information on using the search feature.

Tagging of objects: It is now possible to tag virtual machines, servers and server pool objects within Oracle VM Manager to create logical groupings of items, making it easier to search for objects by tag.

Alphabetized tables and other UI listings: Items listed in tables and other UI listings are now sorted alphabetically within Oracle VM Manager by default, to make it easier to find objects in larger deployments.

Present repository to server pools: In addition to presenting a storage repository to individual Oracle VM Servers, you can now present a repository to all Oracle VM Servers in one or more server pools. See Presenting or Unpresenting a Storage Repository for more information.

Server Pool Cluster timeout configuration: An additional attribute has been added to allow you to determine the timout in seconds for a cluster when configuring a clustered server pool within Oracle VM Manager.

NFS refresh servers and access lists for non-uniform exports: For NFS configurations where different server pools are exposed to different exports, it is now possible to configure non-uniform exports and access lists to control how server pool refreshes are performed. For more information on this feature, please see NFS Access Groups for Non-uniform Exports.

Configure multiple iSCSI access hosts: You can now configure multiple access hosts for iSCSI storage devices

Sizes of disks, ISOs and vdisks: Oracle VM Manager now shows the sizes of disks, ISOs and vdisks within the virtual machine edit dialog, to make it easier to select a disk.

Automated backups and easy restore: Oracle VM Manager installations taking advantage of the bundled MySQL Enterprise Edition Database include fully automated database backups and a quick restore tool that can help with easy database restoration.

Serial console access: A serial console java applet has been included within Oracle VM Manager to allow serial console access to virtual machines running on both SPARC and x86 hardware. This facility complements the existing VNC-based console access to virtual machines running on x86 hardware.

Set preferences for recurring jobs: Facilities have been provided within Oracle VM Manager to control the preferences for recurring jobs. These include the ability to enable, disable or set the interval for tasks such as refreshing repositories and file systems; and to control the Yum Update checking task.

Processor Compatibility Groups: Since virtual machines can only be migrated between servers that use compatible processor types, Oracle VM Manager now provides the ability to define Processor Compatibility Groups to enable you to pick which servers a virtual machine can be migrated between.

Configure additional Utility and Virtual Machine roles: New roles are now supported on Oracle VM Servers to control the type of functionality that the server will be responsible for. The Virtual Machine role is required in order for an Oracle VM Server to run a virtual machine. Oracle VM Servers configured with the Utility role are favoured for performing operations such as file cloning, importing of templates, the creation of repositories, and other operations not directly related to running a virtual machine.

Directly import a virtual machine: It is now possible to directly import a virtual machine using Oracle VM Manager, no longer requiring that you first import to a template and then clone.

Virtual machine start policy: You can now specify a start policy for a virtual machine, determining whether to always start the virtual machine on the server on which it has been placed, or to start the virtual machine on the best possible server in the server pool.

Hot-add a VNIC to a virtual machine: It is now possible to add a VNIC directly to a running virtual machine from within Oracle VM Manager.

Send messages to a virtual machine: Facilities have been provided within Oracle VM Manager to send messages directly to a virtual machine in the form of key-value pairs.

NTP configuration: Ensuring that time is synchronized across all servers is important. Oracle VM Manager now provides a facility to bulk configure NTP across all servers.

Updated Xen Hypervisor: Xen is updated to Release 4.1.2.

New Dom0 Kernel in Oracle VM Server for x86: 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 Virtual Machines Between Oracle VM Servers, Cloning 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 in the Oracle VM User's Guide 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 in the Oracle VM User's Guide for information on how to change the Oracle VM Agent password.

Maintain Oracle VM Manager Identity After Reinstall: See Installing Oracle VM Manager in the Oracle VM Installation and Upgrade Guide 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 in the Oracle VM User's Guide for information on 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 in the Oracle VM User's Guide 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 in the Oracle VM User's Guide 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 in the Oracle VM User's Guide 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 in the Oracle VM User's Guide 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 in the Oracle VM User's Guide for information on virtual machines.