VIRTUAL MACHINES

Distributing and setting up enterprise software is about to get a whole lot easier with Virtual Appliances. Imagine installing server based groupware, wikis, accounting suite, advanced firewalls or web servers virtually any server based products  in minutes. Nothing to configure,build, tweaked, no database to install. Yes, that’s the future of enterprise software with Virtual Appliance.

What’s a Virtual Appliance ?

Basically, a compressed virtual machine image, with all the required components already installed and configured. Think frozen pizza - You throw it into the oven and diner is ready. Deployment cost has always been a significant factor when it comes to large enterprise software - think ORACLE, SAP. Imagine downloading a complete SAP suite + database of your choice pre-installed and pre-configured and simply loading it onto your VirtualBox, Xen, VMware Hypervisor and voila!

Virtual appliances and the Open Virtualization Format

Not only has virtualization advanced the state of the art in maximizing server efficiency, it has also opened the door to new technologies that were not possible before. One of these technologies is the virtual appliance, which fundamentally changes the way software is delivered, configured, and managed. But the power behind virtual appliances lies in the ability to freely share them among different hypervisors. Learn the ideas and benefits behind virtual appliances, and discover a standard solution for virtual appliance interoperability called the Open Virtualization Format.

During the Oracle OpenWorld 2009 extravaganza taking place this week in San Francisco, Oracle made its latest server virtualization move by announcing the release of Oracle VM 2.2. With this product, the company claims its customers will be able to accelerate deployment and simplify management of enterprise applications.