Quoting from below:
So what do you get with this commoditized distribution and especially
kernel? You get hot kernel updates (which can be *very* useful to
avoid downtime when updating a live, mission critical host), and
guaranteed compatibility with Oracle software (which is not a fmall
thing for a big iron Oracle server handling thousands of transactions
a second).
End quote.
The above precisely addresses my query. I have been a long time user of
VirtualBox after VMWare (originally from
a Stanford group if memory serves) became a strictly for-profit
commercial approach that only administrative (not academic research by
Faculty) computing had sufficient budget to afford. I routinely run MS
Windows (currently MS Win 7 pro) under VirtualBox on an EL workstation
as a mechanism to use end-user applications that are not available under
open systems without any necessity of dual-booting, etc. Because
VirtualBox source and documentation are available, I also teach from it
so that students have a better real-world understanding of a hypervisor
and certain types of virtualization.
However, I have not used VirtualBox in a mission-critical server
environment. If anyone else has experience with the Oracle pre-packaged
VMs under VirtualBox in a distributed server environment, I would
appreciate additional observations. On a reasonably well provisioned
workstation, VirtualBox running MS Win 7 (and previous MS Wins) displays
no real end user experience degradation (long load or execute times,
crashes, etc.). However, a mission critical server can experience a
very different workload than a workstation, and it is important to be
able to predict significant end user service degradation due to the
virtualization overhead -- particularly in real-world use (not
simulations or highly controlled environments).
Yasha Karant
On 04/05/2014 08:29 AM, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
VirtualBox itself, I like. The authors seem to have actually read Eric
Raymond's old essay on the "Luxury of Ignorance", and made an
effective user interface that does not *argue* with you, and works
well with multiple types of server and client. I use it on a Windows
box for best performance of games, and use VirtualBox for my
Scientific Linux and similar environments. The use of the right "Alt"
key rather than "Ctrl-Alt" combinations to switch away from the VM
screen is one of my favorite bright moves from its designers.
The Oracle virtual VM's are a freeware problem. Oracle has tried to
proprietize someone Red Hat's free software and open source work,
especially the kernel, and it would be quite difficult to bring their
changes over to SL or other freeware rebuild environments.
Oracle's own download pages point to their "public" yum server at
http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/. Unfortunately, the
repository is not browseable, probably to reduce the likelihood of
people making mirrors of it. To review its contents without installing
them, you have to set up a yum configuration and run something like
"reposync -n -u --repoid=ol6_latest", or mirror them locally with the
"reposync" command. This is feasible, but it's a pain, and makes
picking and choosing awkward. And that seems to be the point. The
source packages seem to be avaialble at
https://oss.oracle.com/ol6/SRPMS-updates/.
So what do you get with this commoditized distribution and especially
kernel? You get hot kernel updates (which can be *very* useful to
avoid downtime when updating a live, mission critical host), and
guaranteed compatibility with Oracle software (which is not a fmall
thing for a big iron Oracle server handling thousands of transactions
a second).
Scientific Linux, and CentOS, have been *very* good about making their
work genuinely open and accessible. They've also been very good about
labeling their modified packages as modified, with an I'm not sure I
want to cooperate with this sort of "we'll make the files available,
but we won't tell you their names" sort of silliness.
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2014 12:04:22 -0700
From: ykar...@csusb.edu
To: scientific-linux-users@fnal.gov
Subject: VMs of EL and other environments
I realize that VirtualBox is separate from SL. However, Oracle has a
distro based upon the same TUV that SL uses and provides a set of
pre-built VMs for
specific purposes - title and URL appear below. Has anyone on this list
used any of these, and if so, any comments on the efficacy of such use?
A reply off-list is fine if this is not a list topic. VirtualBox is
available as an EL6 binary RPM for both IA-32 and X86-64, and seems to
run well with no missing dependencies or crashes.
Thanks,
Yasha Karant
Pre-Built Developer VMs (for Oracle VM VirtualBox)
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/community/developer-vm/index.html
