Home » Server Options » RAC & Failsafe » Oracle now supports RAC on VMWare
Oracle now supports RAC on VMWare [message #482778] Mon, 15 November 2010 14:12 Go to next message
Frank Naude
Messages: 4579
Registered: April 1998
Senior Member
Looks like Oracle now supports RAC on VMWare under certain conditions:

"The key is that previously Oracle explicitly excluded support for Oracle RAC which is no longer the case."

"Oracle will assist customers running Oracle products on VMware in the following manner: Oracle will only provide support for issues that either are known to occur on the native OS, or can be demonstrated not to be as a result of running on VMware."

Source: http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2010/11/oracle-and-vmware-a-major-milestone.html

Best regards.

Frank
Re: Oracle now supports RAC on VMWare [message #482790 is a reply to message #482778] Mon, 15 November 2010 16:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mkounalis
Messages: 147
Registered: October 2009
Location: Dallas, TX
Senior Member
Frank - I don't think your interpretation of the Metalink document is an indication that Oracle has changed their stance on VMWare. Oracle has always supported customers running on VMWare machines, up to the point where the issue might be OS related - and then they ask customers to duplicate the issue on native hardware to rule out the VMWare environment as the culprit. This is still the case. Note that Oracle did state in the same metalink document that NONE of Oracle's products are certified on VMWare. In the past, it was my understanding that a bug in VMWare kept older versions of Oracle RAC from running properly - the clock in a VMWare system could actually go backwards in some cases - making CRS behave weirdly because really a clock should NEVER be able to go back randomly Wink. I am not sure what has changed in VMWare or Oracle CRS 11.2.0.2 to allow RAC to run properly on VMWare - but I do agree with you that it is a good thing that Oracle seems to think that 11gR2 works on VMWARE systems Wink.

On another note, the 'Terms of Use' for Metalink explicitly state that all content from Metalink is not to be posted to the public for any reason - I am not sure where you got that it was OK to re-post the Metalink article on your blog. I am not an employee of Oracle (any longer) but I would strongly urge you to take down your blog post with the full Metalink text in it. You can definately refer to the note and paraphrase it - in my humble opinion Wink.
Re: Oracle now supports RAC on VMWare [message #482804 is a reply to message #482790] Mon, 15 November 2010 23:18 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Frank Naude
Messages: 4579
Registered: April 1998
Senior Member
Just for the record:

1. The blog post referenced doesn't belong to me.

2. The same info is available in several articles over the Internet. So, it is wasn't in the public domain before, it is now.

3. If I understand this correctly, Oracle did not support RAC on VMWare in the past (although it apparently work perfectly OK) and would not even have accepted calls related to it.
Re: Oracle now supports RAC on VMWare [message #482807 is a reply to message #482804] Mon, 15 November 2010 23:27 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Frank Naude
Messages: 4579
Registered: April 1998
Senior Member
More on the subject:

Oracle no longer specifically excludes the clusterware from its VMware support policy
http://www.infoworld.com/d/virtualization/oracle-switches-stance-vmware-rac-support-855

Oracle now supports RAC on VMware...kinda
http://vmwaretips.com/wp/2010/11/11/oracle-now-supports-rac-on-vmwarekinda/

Oracle Praised for Switch on VMware RAC Support
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/210332/oracle_praised_for_switch_on_vmware_rac_support.html

Oracle Broadens x86 Virtualization Support, but Work Remains
http://blogs.gartner.com/chris-wolf/2010/11/10/oracle-broadens-x86-virtualization-support-but-work-remains/

Oracle Praised for Switch on VMware RAC Support
http://www.cio.com/article/635071/Oracle_Praised_for_Switch_on_VMware_RAC_Support

Oracle will now support Oracle RAC on VMware
http://searchoracle.techtarget.com/news/2240024587/Oracle-will-now-support-Oracle-RAC-on-VMware

The list goes on...

Re: Oracle now supports RAC on VMWare [message #482809 is a reply to message #482804] Mon, 15 November 2010 23:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mkounalis
Messages: 147
Registered: October 2009
Location: Dallas, TX
Senior Member
My apologies - I thought you referenced your blog.

It is a major violation of the terms of use of metaling to post articles from metalink anywhere - but as you say it's out there.

RAC did NOT run OK on vmware because of a bug in the real-time-clock of the vm being able to go backwards on it's own. This was always due to a vmware issue (as I understand it) and not an oracle issue - but my understanding could be flawed. I can tell you that I have personally tried to regression test rac on vmware several times and was never able to get it to pass. I also know that some shops attempting to run rac on vmware had to migrate off due to numerous false node evictions - seemingly caused by the real-time clock issue.

I never knew oracle to not take calls on rac running on vmware as I personally opened up several sr's related to this kind of configuration. When the troubleshooting pointed to a hardware issue is when oracle support asked the customer to contact their hardware/os vendor.

I do think it is fairly major for oracle to state that they would support rac running on vmware up to the point that an issue might be caused by the vm itself - that is new as far as making that statement in print. However, I personally don't see this as any kind of change in the way oracle supports rac. It is interesting to see that the support statement states 11gR2 and above.
Re: Oracle now supports RAC on VMWare [message #482811 is a reply to message #482809] Mon, 15 November 2010 23:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Frank Naude
Messages: 4579
Registered: April 1998
Senior Member
Yea, you are probably right. It's not really such a big issue, but it somehow turned into a huge media circus.

PS: I've seen reports indicating that Oracle may want to buy a virtualization product/company like EMC (for VMWare) or Citrix.
The story behind the story may be that Oracle is readying their products for a possible future take-over.
Re: Oracle now supports RAC on VMWare [message #482909 is a reply to message #482811] Tue, 16 November 2010 14:23 Go to previous message
mkounalis
Messages: 147
Registered: October 2009
Location: Dallas, TX
Senior Member
I called some of my peeps today and what you are hearing is what they are hearing Wink. In the end, I believe it is a step (I argue a small step) in the right direction. Still - RAC is something that in reality is hard to justify in a VM - RAC is usually deployed not only in HA environments, but high transaction environments as well. In a high OLTP environment, what do you gain by virtualizing? You need horsepower and resources - the ability to move the resources from node to node is something that just doesn't (to me) make sense for RAC. If you need to do maintenance, you shut down one node/blade/server at a time, upgrade, rinse, repeat, etc. Seems to me that virtualizing your dev environments makes sense - but then for your QA environment it should probably be the same exact environment that your production system is on (which in my humble opinion should be bare metal) - and I also know that is something almost no-one does. I think the basic virtualization mantra of virtualize everything doesn't make sense in a real world environment - still I see lots of shops doing this - and then asking themselves, why? Oracle's support (or lack thereof) on VMWare isn't in my mind, a big deal one way or the other Wink. Thanks for your comments Frank!!
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