With server virtualization becoming more mainstream in the IT industry, the focus is shifting to a deployment model that uses network virtualization to support the sharing of network traffic amongst multiple virtual machines (VMs) or zones. Along with a rise in the adoption of cloud architectures that rely upon virtualization for deploying workloads, network virtualization is playing an even more critical role in the overall network administration strategy in Oracle Solaris.
Virtual environments require a high degree of availability, insulation, performance, and separation. Oracle Solaris provides several features that meet these requirements. Additionally, Oracle Solaris network virtualization features are tightly integrated with other Oracle Solaris features (subsystems). For example, when configuring a zones environment, you can create VNICs (anets) that are automatically configured when the zone boots. For information about working with Oracle Solaris zones, see Introduction to Oracle Solaris 11.2 Virtualization Environments .
Network virtualization is also tightly integrated with Oracle Solaris resource management features, which are used to limit the CPUs in a zones environment. For more information about network virtualization and resource management features in Oracle Solaris, see Managing Network Virtualization and Network Resources in Oracle Solaris 11.2 .
For information about Oracle VM, including Oracle VM Server for x86, Oracle VM Server for SPARC (previously called Sun Logical Domains, or LDoms), and Oracle VM Manager, see the documentation at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/documentation/vm-sparc-194287.html.
Oracle also provides the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center for managing some aspects of network virtualization, for example, the ability to create virtual private networks inside a virtual datacenter. For more information about Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center, refer to the Certified Systems Matrix document at http:/www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=oc122.
For more information and examples, see the scenarios that are described in Chapter 2, Network Configuration Scenarios.