Oracle VM Server can be installed on either x86 or SPARC hardware platforms. Since these platforms are fundamentally dissimilar, the hypervisor used on each platform is different. Oracle VM helps to abstract the hypervisor further by providing a user interface that facilitates the same logical actions across different server types. Much of this abstraction is provided by the Oracle VM Agent that is installed on each Oracle VM Server in the environment.

In this section, the way in which components run on these different hardware platforms and their roles are described in more detail. For more information on the different hardware platforms that are supported and the requirements to run an Oracle VM Server, refer to the Oracle VM Installation and Upgrade Guide.

More detailed coverage of Oracle VM Server is provided in Chapter 6, Understanding Server Pools and Oracle VM Servers.