After Oracle VM Server has been installed, it is in an unowned state and has no relationship to any single Oracle VM deployment. For an Oracle VM Server to be used, it must be added to an Oracle VM Manager instance that can take ownership of the server. This is a process of server discovery.

Server discovery is a straightforward process performed from within Oracle VM Manager, using one of the provided interfaces. The Oracle VM Manager uses a provided IP address or hostname and password to attempt a connection to the Oracle VM Agent running on Oracle VM Server. When authenticated, the server is added to the Oracle VM Manager where various configuration actions such as adding networks or storage, grouping within a server pool, or server updates can be performed. The actions required to discover servers within the Oracle VM Manager Web Interface are discussed in Discover Servers in the Oracle VM Manager User's Guide.

Each Oracle VM Manager instance is assigned a UUID that identifies it to the Oracle VM Servers that it discovers. The Oracle VM Agent running on an Oracle VM Server stores the UUID of the Oracle VM Manager that discovers and takes ownership of it. The UUID is stored on both Oracle VM Manager and the Oracle VM Server. On Oracle VM Manager you can find the UUID in /u01/app/oracle/ovm-manager-3/.config. On Oracle VM Server, the UUID of the owning Oracle VM Manager instance is stored in a Berkeley DB database file that you are able to dump the contents for by doing the following as the root user on the Oracle VM Server system:

# cd /etc/ovs-agent/db
# ovs-agent-db dump_db server

In the case of an Oracle VM Server that is in an unowned state, Oracle VM Manager automatically takes ownership of the server upon discovery. However, for servers that report an owned state, Oracle VM Manager cannot take ownership of the server until the Oracle VM Manager that already has ownership relinquishes it. This is important as configuration actions performed by two separate Oracle VM Manager instances could result in conflicts. Therefore, it is not possible to perform any server configuration until an Oracle VM Manager instance actually has ownership of the server. Taking ownership of a server using the Oracle VM Manager Web Interface is described in Edit Server in the Oracle VM Manager User's Guide.

In addition to the UUID of the Oracle VM Manager that owns a server, each Oracle VM Server also stores a large amount of configuration data locally. This means that if the Oracle VM Manager instance experiences downtime, the environment can continue to function normally. It also means that if an Oracle VM Manager instance is entirely replaced, a fair portion of the configuration can be loaded directly from each newly discovered server. Typical examples of this include networking and clustering information as well as Storage Connections. While this may provide some consolation, information such as the aliases for different elements is not stored on each server, so recovery of an Oracle VM Manager instance in this way is not recommended. A proper backup strategy should be followed instead. It is also important to realize that for this to work, the new Oracle VM Manager instance must have the same UUID as the original instance.

This has implications for server discovery. If an Oracle VM Server has been under the ownership of a separate Oracle VM Manager instance, its existing networking, clustering and storage configuration is not automatically loaded into Oracle VM Manager at the same time. Only the fundamental information about the server is loaded into Oracle VM Manager. This is known as a partial-discovery. Full discovery can only be performed once ownership of the server is under the control of the Oracle VM Manager instance. In a case where an alternate instance of Oracle VM Manager has ownership of a server, it would need to relinquish ownership first. This can only be done for servers that are not part of a server pool and that do not have a repository presented to them. If a server is partially discovered by an Oracle VM Manager instance and the original Oracle VM Manager instance releases ownership, the Oracle VM Manager instance that wishes to take ownership must perform a full rediscovery of the server.