Archive
The FUD Strikes Back – Oracle Licensing on VMware
In my original article on the FUD around Oracle Licensing and Support titled Fight the FUD – Oracle Licensing and Support on VMware vSphere I discussed the Oracle Partitioning Guide and it’s relevance to VMware environments. I provided a link directly to the document on the Oracle web site so that you could all read directly from the source. What I didn’t highlight in my article at the time was that Oracle constantly updates that document without notice and without changing file name or version numbers. My records indicate that it’s been changed three times in the past 3 years. Why is this important? Read on to find out.
DBA’s Don’t Lose Sight Of Your Databases When You Virtualize Oracle
As more and more customers virtualize their Oracle databases it becomes more important to give greater insight to their Oracle DBA’s to ensure Database service levels can be met and that DBA’s can understand how the infrastructure is supporting their databases. One of the fears DBA’s have when virtualizing Oracle databases is that they’ll lose control and visibility of the infrastructure. But this doesn’t need to be the case and smart organizations are putting the power back into the hands of the DBA’s. You can have your IT as a Service Infrastructure for Databases and still give Oracle DBA’s the visibility they need, using tools they are already familiar with.
Fight the FUD: Virtualization of Oracle Evolves to Best Practice for Production Systems by David Floyer
I recently read an article published on Wikibon written by David Floyer titled Virtualization of Oracle Evolves to Best Practice for Production Systems. He makes some good arguments regarding virtualization of production Oracle systems, including ROI and TCO analysis. The examples given provide you with an idea of how you might optimize your environment to improve the efficiency of your investment in Oracle software without sacrificing SLA’s. I would highly recommend that you review the article as it contains some critical advice when considering Oracle software investments, including how to protect your investments from audits. I have first hand experience with how significant the savings can be from a properly optimizsed Oracle designs on VMware vSphere. You just need to take a bit of care and be smart about how you go about it. Here I will give you some additional things to think about based on a recent conversation I had with an Oracle Account Executive, which was quite interesting in my opinion.
Business Critical Apps on VMware vSphere 5? Upgrade to Update 2!
With all of the excitement around vSphere 5.1 last year most of us had forgotten to mention the little 2012 Christmas present that VMware left for customers that are still running vSphere 5.0. What I’m referring to is vSphere 5.0 Update 2. Now that Partner Exchange in Las Vegas is over I’ve had time to revisit this release and the importance of it for customers running business critical apps.
WahlNetwork: Welcome to Virtualization Phase 2 – Adventures in VBCA
Chris Wahl over at the WahlNetwork has just posted a great article on Virtualization Phase 2 – Adventures in VBCA (Virtualizing Business Critical Applications). It is an article that is definitely worthwhile reading. I think one thing that is interesting is how different regions of the world are at different stages within their virtualization journey. On the whole Australia and New Zealand and a few others have been in the Virtualization Phase 2 of VBCA for a couple of years already (I’ve been focused on it since 2007), but it’s still only just getting started. Now many other developed markets are starting to move on to virtualize the easier business critical applications, including Unix to VMware migrations. The opportunity for customers, partners and VMware is massive.
Return of the FUD – Oracle Licensing on VMware vSphere
Some of my regular readers may remember an article I published titled Fight the FUD – Oracle Licensing and Support on VMware vSphere . This new article represents an addendum to my original article as some additional FUD has come to light. Hopefully this will allow you to avoid investing in licenses that will be unnecessary and unused, and thereby improve your return on your license investment. It’s again time to fight back and to stop the FUD!
Virtualized Oracle Databases on UCS
Some time ago I wrote an article about EMC’s Blueprint for Successful Large Scale Oracle Virtualization on vSphere. Now Cisco IT has published a similar whitepaper and study after having virtualized a large number of their corporate Oracle databases on top of their Unified Computing System (UCS) platform. The results are quite impressive in my opinion and you may be able to learn a lot from their effort. The difference here is that Cisco tested with NFS and D-NFS, not Fibre Channel (as in the EMC case study).
50 Partners To Help You Virtualize Business Critical Applications
I just noticed an article on VMware’s Virtualize Business Critical Applications blog listing all the partners globally that have so far been accredited under the VMware Virtualize Business Critical Applications Program (VBCA) – http://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2012/12/50-partners-to-help-you-virtualize-business-critical-applications.html.
Virtualizing Business Critical Applications on VMware Whitepaper
I’ve been reading through a great whitepaper published by VMware recently that covers a number of different business critical applications. The Virtualizing Business Critical Applications on VMware whitepaper has plenty of good guidance for Oracle, SAP, Java, Exchange, SQL Server, Sharepoint, Hadoop and also covers support and licensing. The paper also includes all of the leading VMware Partners that are accredited by VMware under their Virtualizing Business Critical Applications Competency to provide services to help you virtualize these business critical applications.
VMware’s Oracle Support Goes 24/7 From Q1 2013
I heard some great news yesterday from the man in charge of Oracle Solution Support at VMware Global Support Services. The Extended Oracle Support Policy that VMware provides for all customers running Oracle Software on VMware vSphere is going to be extended even further.
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Your Author: Michael Webster, VCDX-066, vExpert 2012
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