VM Ware

[KevinM]

What is the general opinion of running the Oracle 10g database on VM servers. Also welcome views on best practice for segregation of PD and PY environments.

EnterpriseOne 8.12 Tools 8.97 OAS 10.1.3.1 Oracle 10g Windows 2003.

 

[altquark]

ARRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!

Its like a nightmare ! Every other post is someone asking the exact same question !!!!

Kevin - I'm not trying to be rude - but I literally just answered yet ANOTHER vmware question about 30 seconds ago - just to see the EXACT SAME question pop up from yourself !

I would STRONGLY suggest you perform a search in this forum for "VMWare".

Key points :

1. Performance sucks, but its not supported.
2. There are limits to CPU/Memory/threads/disk and its not supported.
3. It might work but its not supported
4. Its not supported.

Oh yeah, and it might not be supported either.

I noted that many of your past posts are questions about whether XYZ would work (IE6, Windows 2000 etc etc) - I strongly suggest you march off to the knowledge garden (theres a link at www.peoplesoft.com) and go to the "Minimum Technical Requirements" section. If it ain't listed, it ain't supported.

As for this specific question, perhaps you're not talking about EnterpriseOne ? If not, then I would also suggest talking to Oracle - since its their product - and asking them if putting a database on a virtual device is worth doing. They might tell you its not supported, they might tell you to use Oracle Virtualization as a product instead of VMWare.

Once you realize its not supported, stop and think about WHY its not supported. Remember, its a virtual machine, and there are limitations that VMWare has. It works well for "playing" in test and development - but never EVER attempt to implement a database on a VMWare machine.

Of course, if you don't believe me and you want to try for yourself - why not just download a VMWare oracle appliance and test it ? I am actually looking at the CentOS Oracle 10.2 VMWare image (just google for that) and it works pretty darn well for a "play" machine. Probably get about a total of 4 or 5 JDE users on the thing before it completely crashes.

 

[jstooge]

I've spit up pepsi one all over my keyboard after reading that last post. So, a question...if my machine that has the pepsi one all over the keyboard has vmware and I can connect to it from another machine and I want to load something E1 related on it...would that be supported, or do I have to clean up the pepsi one first.

I'm just glad quarkie got to it first, I was reading the question in my e-mail and thinking "why don't we just create a forum and title it VMWARE - Forum for Unsupported Questions for Your Unsupported E1 Solution"

 

[gregglarkin]

oh great - first I spit out my pepsi from Jon's post, then the rest came out from Stoogies post..... So if I link up my pepsi infested computer to Stoogies pepsi infested computer, maybe we could set up one them cool vm-quantum computer pepsi spit take uber networks. that would be cool!

 

[jstooge]

Don't worry quarkie...got this one. Mr. L, EVERYONE knows that you can't connect pepsi one spewed computers with those that have been spewed with pepsi...at least until E1 9.0 with 8.98 comes out...they then have a built in diet to fattening cola adapter in the b9\system\adapters\beverages\carbonated\cola\pepsi\p1top folder. Sheesh...these questions...no wonder quarkie is in a huff!

 

[cmanderson]

Sorry to butt into this current meeting of the Mutual Admiration Society.

To start a polite response to your question about best practices for separating PY and PD - the bottom line is generally going to be based on business requirements and IT policies. We've chosen to separate DV, PY and PD into three separate databases. DV and PY databases run on the DEV/QA server. PROD runs in the dedicated production server. Shared schemas are located in the production database and security is applied by role to prevent unauthorized access to the production data.

Oh, guess what, our Oracle databases are virtualized. They're running in IBM AIX DLPARs (Dynamic Logical Partitions), with I/O provided by redundant (not load balanced) IBM Virtual IO Servers (VIOS) which does just what it states. Performance is excellent. I've not seen any problems in the application introduced by the Hypervisor.

As previously mentioned, VMware is not officially supported. BUT, if you want to run you run OracleVM, you can virtualize your Oracle Database 10g or 11g database for EnterpriseOne and receive full support from Oracle. Tools 8.97.2 now supports Oracle VM 2.1.1.

If running under OracleVM, it is best (for performance reasons) to run Oracle on a Linux guest VM, and that means Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 and 5 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4 or 5.

Off the cuff, you might be "kind of sort of" supported if you run VMWare...but might be a good idea not to mention that if you call in for support (unless they can't duplicate your problem...)

 

[altquark]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, guess what, our Oracle databases are virtualized. They're running in IBM AIX DLPARs (Dynamic Logical Partitions), with I/O provided by redundant (not load balanced) IBM Virtual IO Servers (VIOS) which does just what it states. Performance is excellent. I've not seen any problems in the application introduced by the Hypervisor.

As previously mentioned, VMware is not officially supported. BUT, if you want to run you run OracleVM, you can virtualize your Oracle Database 10g or 11g database for EnterpriseOne and receive full support from Oracle. Tools 8.97.2 now supports Oracle VM 2.1.1.


[/ QUOTE ]

Thats nice. So this guy is asking about support of JDE under VM - and you're talking about a completely different technology. Its nice that you're running virtualized under IBM AIX DLPAR's - but that isn't VMWare nor is it Oracle Virtualization.

SO, to return to the subject, VMWare isn't supported. Not even if VMWare themselves say they are the "best" at running Oracle - in reality, JDE Support people will laugh hysterically at your performance issues.

NOW, there IS a big proposal to get JDE to support Virtualization - but it hasn't passed through yet. What this really means is that JDE tests, and certifies certain virtualization technologies and places a "will work for jde" badge on specific technologies. It IS certainly overdue - VMWare has been on EVERYONES lips for 10 years now.

As for running Oracle VM - it has been tried. It isn't good. Although many of us have been able to get an EnterpriseOne environment up and running on VMWare (ESX or Server) - I don't know of anyone who has managed to get an EnterpriseOne environment running on Oracle VM. However, I might be wrong...

SO, certainly there are "virtual" environments out there that, from a hardware/OS standpoint, might work out (heck, isn't an IBM LPAR really a "virtual machine" ? Doesn't E1 really run under a Java "Virtual Machine" ?!) - I think the actual question most asked here is "Does JDE support VMWare" - and the answer is "No...unless you're using it for Test or Development purposes"

 

[cmanderson]

Yes, I thought it was nice. And nice that you picked out one paragraph (which starts off with "Guess what?") from my overall response to slap me around with. Good deal.

The subject was "VM Ware", and the meat of the question was about virtualizing the database. They ARE related.

Oracle doesn't "support" my configuration either, but it really isn't that important to me. More probably run in a mode like I'm running than don't, otherwise the "value proposition" of the Power5/Power6 hardware isn't much more than "its better than before".

We're a VMware ESX shop and an IBM System p shop. I don't happen to have any E1 components on ESX because, well, I migrated it from AIX and kept it on AIX. No compelling reason to put it on ESX inside Windows or Linux guests. Virtualization is virtualization, for the most part. Sure there can be funky things that happen if the vendor screws up the abstraction layer, but really, there is a reason Oracle originally stated they'd support you provided they could duplicate the problem (then reversed that position once Oracle put out their own OracleVM product based on Xen).

[ QUOTE ]
(heck, isn't an IBM LPAR really a "virtual machine"?

[/ QUOTE ]
My point exactly. They were at the forefront of virtualization decades ago.

[ QUOTE ]
Doesn't E1 really run under a Java "Virtual Machine" ?!)

[/ QUOTE ]
You know this of course. Depends on the component you're referring to (I'll assume the HTML client, so yes) and the Enterprise Server does launch JVMs now (like BI Publisher).