As organisations face increasing demands for agility, efficiency, and cost control, modernising virtualisation infrastructure has become essential. Traditional, proprietary virtualisation platforms often come with high licensing fees and operational complexity.
Oracle Linux Virtualisation Manager (OLVM), built on open-source technologies, offers a modern, cost-effective alternative for managing virtual environments.
Why modernise?
Outdated virtualisation platforms can lead to inefficiencies, increased operational costs, and limited scalability. Choosing to modernise your virtualised infrastructure with OLVM enables you to reduce the total cost of ownership by eliminating expensive proprietary licensing (like VMware).
Switching to OVLM will streamline management using automation and intuitive dashboards to simplify common tasks. However, these simplified interfaces mask enterprise-grade functionality. OVLM enhances security and compliance with advanced kernel protections for instance. And the entire platform has been designed to improve scalability and performance for cloud and on-premises workloads.
Why Oracle Linux Virtualisation Manager will help you meet the virtualisation challenges of the future
Open-Source Foundation
OLVM is based on the trusted oVirt project and uses the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor. This open-source approach means there are no additional licensing costs for the virtualisation layer, significantly reducing ongoing expenses.
Cost-efficient licensing
Oracle Linux KVM supports hard partitioning, allowing virtual machines to be pinned to specific physical CPU cores. This feature enables organisations to license Oracle software only for the cores actually used, rather than all available cores, as is the case with other virtualisation platforms. This architecture leads to substantial savings on software licensing.
Automation and management
OLVM uses a modern web-based interface behind which sits a comprehensive REST API. In just a matter of clicks, your virtualisation engineers can automate deployment and configuration of virtual machines using templates for rapid infrastructure changes.
The OLVM console also provides centralised monitoring of hosts, clusters, and storage with real-time performance metrics so you can assess health ‘at a glance’. Advanced monitoring and analytics using tools like Grafana is simple thanks to support for third-party integrations.
These capabilities reduce manual intervention, minimise errors, and free IT staff to focus on strategic initiatives without compromising scalability.
Rapid deployment and migration
Pre-configured VM templates and support for importing/exporting VMs in standard formats (OVF/OVA) accelerate deployment times and simplify migration from legacy platforms. The integrated virt-v2v utility enables seamless migration of virtual machines from other hypervisors, further reducing transition costs and complexity.
Enhanced security and compliance
OLVM incorporates robust security features to protect your virtualisation layer and VMs, including:
- Role-based access control for granular user permissions
- Integration with LDAP or Active Directory for secure authentication
- Support for secure boot and disk encryption
- Advanced workload isolation with SELinux and sVirt
These features help you meet stringent compliance requirements and protect sensitive workloads against malicious actors.
Scalability and performance
The low-overhead architecture of Oracle Linux KVM allows for high performance and scalability, supporting large-scale enterprise deployments with thousands of virtual CPUs and terabytes of memory. Dynamic scheduling and load balancing ensure optimal resource utilisation and energy efficiency – and enhanced cost controls for per-resource billed environments.
Seamless integration
OLVM integrates smoothly with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and other Oracle products, providing a unified management experience across hybrid and multicloud environments. This integration streamlines operations and simplifies the path to cloud adoption – or migration between platforms.
Modernise now
Modernising virtualisation with Oracle Linux Virtualisation Manager allows you to achieve greater agility, reduce operational and licensing costs, and enhance security. By adopting an open-source, enterprise-grade solution, your business can future-proof IT infrastructure and unlock new efficiencies, all while maintaining robust support and integration with Oracle’s ecosystem.
To learn more about the process and what is involved, please give the WTL team a call.