Hi, On 11 Nov 2013, at 10:25 am, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:
What exactly is Oracle VM? Just a Linux distribution specifically for Xen?
Oracle VM is Oracle's Xen-based virtualization product.
Does it have the full features? IE can I have the Dom0 running as a full router and use shell access as a supported feature? Or is it expected to be only run via web access?
Shell access is not a supported feature, but I suspect you're not going to be paying for support anyway. :) Oracle VM is designed to be used only with the web-based management tool, which configures and manages one or more Oracle VM Servers to create clustered or non-clustered pools. All aspects of management are available via the web UI, including server configuration (storage and network), VM creation, template creation, HA/migration, etc.
Is BTRFS supported in Oracle VM? OCFS2 doesn't seem to give any benefits over Ext4 for a non-clustered filesystem.
Neither btrfs nor ext4 are supported for local/non-clustered repositories, only OCFS2. This gives us consistency in filesystem between the local and clustered operation. OCFS2 also is tuned for VM storage (i.e. large file sizes) and allows for reflinking, which provides for hot snapshots of running VMs. For clustered storage, we support OCFS2 via iSCSI/FC SAN or NFS.
HA support out of the box sounds interesting.
HA requires a clustered pool, so you will need a small iSCSI or NFS mount (12GB) to provide the pool filesystem and a virtual IP. Once the cluster is enabled, you can flag any VM for HA. This means the VM will be restarted if it crashes, or automatically started on another server if the physical hosting the VM dies. Cheers, Avi