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8 Replies Last post: Dec 3, 2006 12:00 PM by daniel_uk
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Oracle

Nov 29, 2006 1:03 PM

Click to view macneej's profile Enthusiast macneej 71 posts since
Jun 7, 2006
One of my clients are looking to put their Oracle 9 and 8 production servers on ESX 3.0.1.
Does anyone know what issues Oracle have with licensing on VMware? Can you point me to some documentation on this?
Also has anyone had any experience with running Oracle databases on virtual machines. We would be running the Oracle DB inside RHL 4.0.
Click to view acr's profile Virtuoso acr 3,012 posts since
Nov 17, 2005
There's an Oracle on Linux - VMware cookbook here..

http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/linux/vmware/cookbook/index.html

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=31773&#31773

Message was edited by:
ken.cline@hp.com to shorten the URL
Reply Re: Oracle Nov 29, 2006 3:30 PM
in response to: acr
Click to view macneej's profile Enthusiast macneej 71 posts since
Jun 7, 2006
Thanks for this info.

From the link you sent through it seems that VMware is considered soft partitioning so I will need oracle licenses for all CPU on the hardware. The link was about 2 years old. Does anyone know if this is still current?

Does anyone have any experience of running Oracle on Vmware?
Reply Re: Oracle Nov 29, 2006 6:44 PM
in response to: macneej
Click to view dmanconi's profile Enthusiast dmanconi 95 posts since
Oct 14, 2004
Yes the licensing is correct. They charge you per physical CPU in the ESX server. some collegues I work with just confirmed this recently. Very slick indeed on Oracle's part
Click to view petedr's profile Master petedr 1,133 posts since
Mar 18, 2006
We run Oracle applications 11.5.7 and 9.2.0.2 database on ESX, Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1

Our licenses with Oracle though are Named Users so running as VM didn't make a difference in regard to our license.
Reply Re: Oracle Dec 2, 2006 4:37 PM
in response to: petedr
Click to view petedr's profile Master petedr 1,133 posts since
Mar 18, 2006
I was emailed from someone on the VMTN board regarding our Oracle environment and ESX. Here is more information about our environment that I had posted in prior topics.

We are running our complete Oracle environments as virtuals ( production and development servers ). Initially we just ran the development environments but about 2 years we made the move for production as well.

Our production environment runs on ESX 2.5
Host is a HP Proliant DL385 Dual Core 2.2Ghz 8GB RAM
internal drives

Production Oracle is :
9.2.0.2 DB ( 60GB database )
11.5.9 ( 350 users - running financials - AP,GL, PO, FA )
O/S Linux Advanced Server 2.1 (2.4.9 kernel )
Guest is is given 3.5GB memory and we running is with 2 virtual processors

Also running 2 production Oracle forms server on same host along with a few additional non-oracle guests

We are running our development and system testing environments currently under GSX.

We have had no issues so far, performancs is fine, works great. With running production as a VM we have been able to benefit from everything VMware has to offer ( complete vmdk backups, hardware independence, easy recovery in case of server failure etc ).

One of the best Vmware features for the development environment is running with snapshots. Big advantage when testing patches or code. In case of issues we can easily revert to the snapshot and start again. Also with everything being virtuals it makes replication of environments and refreshes alot easier then the traditional method.
Reply Re: Oracle Dec 3, 2006 11:12 AM
in response to: petedr
Click to view macneej's profile Enthusiast macneej 71 posts since
Jun 7, 2006
Thanks for this information,

We will have to trial running our Oracles in a VM. Also their licensing method may work for me as we can put multiple different Oracle servers (version 8 and 9) on one host.
Reply Re: Oracle Dec 3, 2006 11:20 AM
in response to: macneej
Click to view petedr's profile Master petedr 1,133 posts since
Mar 18, 2006
Not problem, should work out fine in your trials running Oracle as a VM.
Reply Re: Oracle Dec 3, 2006 12:00 PM
in response to: petedr
Click to view daniel_uk's profile Expert daniel_uk 962 posts since
Oct 24, 2005
Ive just put an oracle box on and will be putting another on soon.

The licensing is a pain in the arse...they license 0.5 per core so if youve got DUal core ESX hosts and a Two Proc Oracle license your covered...i think.

Dan