On SPARC systems, the SPARC hypervisor is built into the SPARC firmware and is generally referred to as the Logical Domains Manager (LDOM). If Oracle VM Server for SPARC has not been installed, the default operating system runs on top of the hypervisor transparently. When Oracle VM Server for SPARC is installed, the default operating system becomes the primary domain and tools are provided for the primary domain to manage how resources and hardware are allocated via the hypervisor to other domains.

As with the Xen hypervisor, each virtual machine is securely executed on a single computer and runs its own guest Oracle Solaris operating system. The SPARC hypervisor provides a broader range of virtualization features than the Xen hypervisor, due to the nature and design of SPARC hardware.