Glossary
C
- clone
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The action or result of making an exact copy of an object. The object may be a virtual machine, virtual machine template, ISO file, or virtual disk. Cloning is similar to copying and maintains the integrity of the original object, while creating a new object based on the original. A clone customizer may be used to define cloning options to specify details of where the object components may reside when cloned, such as in a different storage repository.
D
- dom0
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An abbreviation for domain zero. The management domain with privileged access to the hardware and device drivers. Dom0 is the first domain started at boot time. Dom0 has more privileges than domU. It can access the hardware directly and can manage the device drivers for other domains. It can also start new domains.
See Also: control domain
- domU
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An unprivileged domain with no direct access to the hardware or device drivers. Each domU is started by dom0.
E
- events
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Events are used to register status information of "objects" within Oracle VM Manager for future reference or to make problems easier to trace back. Events are often, though not always, related to jobs that are initiated within Oracle VM Manager. For instance, when a job fails, an event is generated. Events can also be triggered through changes in the environment such as server crashes or storage disconnects. Therefore, events are used to alert you to potential problems that may need your attention.
Events are categorized by severity. Most events will be informational, but they can also be warnings or errors. If an event has an error level severity, you need to acknowledge the error event to clear the error and to perform further operations on the object that generated the error.
See Also: jobs
G
H
- hard partitioning
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Hard partition, or CPU pinning, is the act of binding a virtual machine to one or more physical CPUs or cores. This prevents software within the virtual machine from running on any cores other than those specified for the virtual machine. By default, Oracle VM takes advantage of distributed resource scheduling, which allows a virtual machine to use all cores on an Oracle VM Server as required. In some situations, such as the requirement to conform with Oracle licensing policies for partitioned environments, it may be desirable to implement hard partitioning.
Hard partitioning can result in restrictions on live migration, DRS and DPM.
- host computer
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The physical computer on which the software is installed. Typically used to refer to either the computer on which Oracle VM Server or Oracle VM Manager is running.
- hypervisor
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A hypervisor, also called a monitor or Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), is a layer which abstracts the virtual hardware from the real hardware. As such it is the only privileged entity in the system which has full access to real hardware resources. It controls only the most basic resources of the system, including CPU and memory usage, privilege checks, and hardware interrupts.
Hosted hypervisors are designed to run within a traditional operating system. In other words, a hosted hypervisor adds a distinct software layer to the host operating system, and the guest operating system becomes a third software level above the hardware and the host-based hypervisor. A well-known example of a hosted hypervisor is Oracle VM VirtualBox. Others include VMware Server and Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, KVM, QEMU, and Parallels.
Native hypervisors are software systems that run directly on the host's hardware to control the hardware, and to monitor the guest operating systems. The guest operating system runs on a separate level above the hypervisor. Examples of this type of virtualization architecture are Oracle VM, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESX, and Xen.
M
- messaging
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Oracle VM supports a messaging system that enables communication between the Oracle VM Manager and a guest running within a virtual machine on any Oracle VM Server, as long as the guest has the Oracle VM Guest Additions installed. This messaging system works by sending key/value pairs between the guest and Oracle VM Manager via a secured connection. Messaging allows greater administrative control over virtual machines and facilitates remote and automated configuration of virtual machines as they are started.
- migrate
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The act of moving a virtual machine from one Oracle VM Server to another, or to the Unassigned Virtual Machines folder. Technically, a migration can only be performed on a running virtual machine, however the Oracle VM Manager Web Interface and Oracle VM Manager Command Line Interface may combine multiple operations to make it appear that you can perform a migration on either a running or a stopped virtual machine.
- multipath
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The technique of creating more than one physical path between the server CPU and its storage devices. It results in better fault tolerance and performance enhancement. Oracle VM supports multipath I/O out of the box. Oracle VM Servers are installed with multipathing enabled because it is a requirement for SAN disks to be discovered by Oracle VM Manager
O
- OCFS2
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Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS2) is a general-purpose shared-disk cluster file system for Linux capable of providing both high performance and high availability. OCFS2 is developed by Oracle and is integrated within the mainstream Linux kernel. OCFS2 is used within Oracle VM to facilitate clustered server pools, storage of virtual machine images and for the purpose of allowing guests to share the same file system.
A clustered server pool always uses an OCFS2 file system to store the cluster configuration and to take advantage of OCFS2's heartbeat facility. There are two types of heartbeats used in OCFS2 to ensure high availability:
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The disk heartbeat: all Oracle VM Servers in the cluster write a time stamp to the server pool file system device.
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The network heartbeat: all Oracle VM Servers communicate through the network to signal to each other that every cluster member is alive.
These heartbeat functions exist directly within the kernel and are fundamental to the clustering functionality that Oracle VM offers for server pools. The server pool file system should be stored on a separate NFS server or on a small LUN if possible, as OCFS2's heartbeat facility can be disturbed by intensive I/O operations taking place on the same physical storage.
A storage repository configured on a LUN-based repository must be linked to a clustered server pool due to the nature of the OCFS2 file system. As a result, LUN-based repositories cannot be shared between multiple server pools, although it is possible to move an OCFS2 repository from one server pool to another.
For more information on OCFS2, please refer to https://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2/.
-
- Oracle VM Agent
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An application installed with Oracle VM Server. The Oracle VM Agent receives and processes management requests, and provides event notifications and configuration data to the Oracle VM Manager. Oracle VM Manager manages the virtual machines running on Oracle VM Server by communicating with Oracle VM Agent. It contains three components: master Oracle VM Server, Utility Server, and Virtual Machine Server.
- Oracle VM Manager
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Oracle VM Manager is the management platform, which offers an easy-to-use, web-browser interface as well as a command-line interface (CLI). Oracle VM Manager tracks and manages the resources available in your virtual environment and allows you to easily manage Oracle VM Server pools. Oracle VM Manager lets you manage the virtual machine life cycle, including creating virtual machines from templates or from installation media, deleting, powering off, uploading, deployment and live migration of virtual machines. Oracle VM Manager also lets you manage resources including ISO files, templates and shared virtual disks.
- Oracle VM Server
-
A self-contained virtualization environment designed to provide a lightweight, secure, server-based platform for running virtual machines. The Oracle VM Server comprises a hypervisor and a privileged domain (called dom0) that allow multiple domains or guest operation systems (such as Linux, Solaris, and Windows) to run on one physical machine. Includes Oracle VM Agent to enable communication with Oracle VM Manager.
The Oracle VM Server for x86 incorporates an open source Xen hypervisor component, which has been customized and optimized to integrate into the larger, Oracle - developed virtualization server. The Oracle VM Server for x86 is also responsible for access and security management and generally acts as the server administrative entity, because the hypervisor’s role is limited.
On Oracle VM Server for SPARC systems, the SPARC hypervisor is built into the SPARC firmware and is generally referred to as the Logical Domains Manager. As with the Xen hypervisor, each virtual machine is securely executed on a single computer and runs its own guest Oracle Solaris operating system
P
- paravirtualized machine (PVM)
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A virtual machine with a kernel that is recompiled to be made aware of the virtual environment. Runs at near native speed, with memory, disk and network access optimized for maximum performance.
Paravirtualized guests use generic, idealized device drivers, which are part of the guest’s OS. The I/O operations using these generic device drivers are mapped to the real device drivers in dom0. The generic, abstracted drivers in the guest seldom change and provide excellent guest stability. The dom0 domain, alternatively, can use the native hardware vendor drivers, and the guests can safely migrate to another dom0 with slightly different drivers.
For other resources such as CPU and memory, paravirtualized kernels make special “hypercalls” to the Xen hypervisor. These hypercalls provide better performance by reducing the number of instructions and context switches required to handle an incoming request. By contrast, on an emulated (hardware virtualized) guest, driver requests engage the guest’s interrupt handler, increasing the I/O operation overhead.
Q
S
- server pool
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Server pools logically organize one or more Oracle VM Servers into groups where virtual machines can run.
Each server pool can have up to 32 physical servers. Each Oracle VM Server can be a member of only one server pool. The server pool is the operational unit of Oracle VM. Policies are configured and enforced at the server pool level.
A minimum cluster of three Oracle VM Server nodes in each server pool is strongly recommended for high availability. If one node in the cluster experiences a hardware failure or is shut down for maintenance, failover redundancy is preserved with the other two nodes. Having a third node in the cluster also provides reserve capacity for production load requirements.
V
- virtual disk
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A file or set of files, usually on the host file system although it may also be a remote file system, that appears as a physical disk drive to the guest operating system.
- virtual machine (VM)
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A guest operating system and the associated application software that runs within Oracle VM Server. May be paravirtualized or hardware virtualized machines. Multiple virtual machines can run on the same Oracle VM Server.
- virtual machine template
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A template of a virtual machine. Contains basic configuration information such as the number of CPUs, memory size, hard disk size, and network interface card (NIC). Create virtual machines based on a virtual machine template using Oracle VM Manager.
W
- WebLogic
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Oracle WebLogic Server is a platform that includes an application server that can run java applications within a web-based framework. Oracle VM Manager runs as an application within Oracle WebLogic Server, taking advantage of many of Oracle WebLogic Server's many features to deliver a robust web UI through which Oracle VM can be fully managed.
The installation process behind Oracle VM Manager automatically installs and configures Oracle WebLogic Server on the system where Oracle VM Manager is installed. During this process, a weblogic user is set up within Oracle WebLogic Server to manage Oracle WebLogic Server configuration and to administer the underlying system. An admin user is also set up within Oracle WebLogic Server and is given permission to access the Oracle VM Manager application. A typical setup uses the same password for both of these users, although this is not always the case and it is possible to configure a different password for each user depending on your requirements.
In general, users of the Oracle VM Manager application should avoid attempting to access the underlying Oracle WebLogic Server, or to change any configuration parameters here without guidance from Oracle Support.