Chapter 3 Understanding Storage

Since storage is such a fundamental component within an Oracle VM, and many of the concepts surrounding it are not discussed elsewhere in the Oracle VM documentation, this chapter is dedicated to providing a detailed overview of storage infrastructure and how it is used within Oracle VM. Many of the concepts presented here are designed to assist you during the configuration of your storage using any of the interfaces provided by Oracle VM Manager, including the web-based user interface and the Oracle VM Manager Command Line Interface. A very brief overview of storage components is provided at Section 2.6.1, “Storage”.

To get a more thorough overview of how storage is used within Oracle VM and the supported storage types, it is recommended that you refer to Section 3.1, “What is Storage Used for in Oracle VM?” and Section 3.2, “What Types of Storage Can be Used?”.

The particular way in which Oracle VM approaches storage is through plug-ins: Oracle has made storage configuration and integration as flexible and modular as possible by creating a Storage Connect plug-in for each different category and type of storage. These plug-ins are discussed in further detail in Section 3.4, “How do Different Storage Types Connect?”.

For information on managing and working with the contents of a storage repository, such as virtual machine templates, ISO files, assemblies, and so on, see Section 3.9, “Where are Virtual Machine Resources Located?”.

Once you have a good understanding of the Oracle VM storage concepts, please take the time to read Section 3.10, “Are there Guidelines for Configuring Storage?” before you start planning your storage infrastructure. This can help you to ensure that your storage configuration is well planned and that you avoid common pitfalls.