Hard Partitioning and

Virtualization with
Oracle Virtual Machine
An approach toward cost saving with Oracle Database licenses

JANUARY 2013
Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2
Hard Partitioning Concepts ...................................................................................................................... 2
Oracle Support of Virtualized Servers ...................................................................................................... 3
Oracle VM vs. VMware Comparison......................................................................................................... 4
Hard Partitioning with Oracle VM Server for x86 ..................................................................................... 6
Oracle Real Application Cluster on Oracle VM Server for x86 ................................................................... 6
What is RAC? ....................................................................................................................................... 6
Cost Advantages ...................................................................................................................................... 7
Solution #1 – Active-Passive Cluster Using VMware ............................................................................. 8
Conceptual Architecture .................................................................................................................. 8
Cost Analysis.................................................................................................................................... 9
Solution #2 – RAC Cluster with VMware............................................................................................. 10
Conceptual Architecture ................................................................................................................ 10
Cost Analysis.................................................................................................................................. 11
Solution #3 – RAC Cluster with OVM .................................................................................................. 12
Conceptual Architecture ................................................................................................................ 12
Cost Analysis.................................................................................................................................. 13
Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 14
Contact Dewpoint Today ....................................................................................................................... 14

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Introduction
Virtualization has become the normal method of deploying server workloads in today’s data center.
This technology has become so pervasive that it is rare to find a data center that is not virtualized at the
web and application tier. However, there are two types of environments that have not made
widespread use of virtualization technology: Tier 1 applications and database servers.

While Oracle supports virtualization of its database, its support of these configurations is somewhat
limited on any virtualization platform that relies on the operating system to perform the resource
management. This soft partitioning concept allows a very flexible approach toward resource
management that can ultimately impact the overall database licensing for a particular server.

To account for this flexibility Oracle requires that a server be licensed in its entirety for the database,
even if only a small percentage of that server is allocated to a virtual machine running the database.

However, organizations are requiring that server resources be more leveraged to spread out the cost of
that server over multiple applications, thereby lowering the total cost of ownership of the application or
project.

In order to provide companies with the ability to use their assets in a more efficient manner while
maintaining the integrity of its licensing, Oracle has implemented a hard partitioning concept within its
virtualization software.

This white paper addresses the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing hard partitioning to control
database licensing costs, thereby lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the database
environment.

Hard Partitioning Concepts

Hard partitioning is not a new concept. It was originally implemented in IBM mainframe technology 1
and is used to physically segment a server into several smaller servers with dedicated resources assigned
to each of the segmented servers. Technologies from IBM, HP, Oracle and Fujitsu exist that perform
hard partitioning on each of their Unix servers. The implementation of this technology provides the
ability of the system administrator to dedicate specific compute resources to a virtual machine running
on that physical server.

This hard partitioning concept has been very prevalent in the “big iron” Unix servers and has now been
implemented in servers that adhere to a much smaller form factor. Even in the smaller Unix server form
factors, the implementation of hard partitioning is dependent on purchasing a server from a specific
hardware vendor. For example, LDOMs and Dynamic System Domains are Solaris implementations
unique to servers created by Oracle. Likewise, Integrity VM, VPAR, nPAR and Secure Resource Partitions

1
http://www.ittoday.info/Articles/Server_Virtualization_Technologies/Server_Virtualization_Technologies.htm

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(capped only) are implementations unique to HP-UX and HP hardware. IBM and AIX have LPAR and
Micro-Partitions.

Since commodity hardware continues to become more important in today’s data centers, a method of
virtualizing database servers that controls licensing costs is very much needed. Oracle Virtual Machine
provides a solution that will allow organizations to take advantage of virtualizing the Oracle database
while controlling licensing costs.

Oracle Support of Virtualized Servers

VMware is the unquestioned market leader in server virtualization. VMware vSphere is a robust
virtualization platform that provides an extensive feature set that may or may not be utilized by an IT
organization. Some customers question the cost benefit associated with this product, but overall it
continues to be the primary virtualization platform in the market.

One area where VMware has not gained significant adoption is with the Oracle database. The lack of
traction for the database environment is related to a perceived lack of support by Oracle running its
database on VMware. In November 2010, Oracle published a formal policy in MyOracleSupport
Document ID# 249212.1. In summary, this policy states that while Oracle does not certify its products to
run in a VMware environment, they will assist customers running in a VMware environment with issues
that are “…either known to occur in the native OS, or can be demonstrated not to be the result of
running on VMware.”2

Oracle VM server for x86 is an enterprise class server virtualization solution that reflects Oracle’s
commitment to enabling Oracle products to be integrated into a cohesive stack. Oracle VM is built on a
concept of Application Driven Virtualization and is designed to make the entire hardware and software
stack easier to deploy, manage and support. This entire concept is business focused, enabling IT to be
more agile to the business. Oracle VM Server for x86 is the only x86 server virtualization solution fully
certified by Oracle to run the Oracle Database and other Oracle applications.

2
MyOracleSupport Note 249212.1

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Oracle VM vs. VMware Comparison
The following table illustrates how Oracle VM for x86 compares favorably to VMware in terms of features.3

Reason Oracle VMware

Application-Driven Oracle offers a complete applications-to-disk stack, and VMware's virtualization/
virtualization is fully integrated across all layers hypervisor has no
awareness of the database,
Oracle's virtualization solutions are aware of what's
middleware, or the
running inside the virtual machine and can provision applications running inside
and manage applications, middleware, and databases of it

Lower Cost Unlike VMware, Oracle VM is free to download, use, and High cost of ownership
distribute
Very high license, support,
Affordable support fees and management costs

Simple licensing Complex licensing

Scalability Oracle VM 3.0 is 4 times more scalable than VMware VMware vSphere 5 only
with support for 128 vCPUs per guest VM supports 32 vCPUs per
guest VM

Integrated Full stack management Multiple vendor tools

Management needed for managing the
Manages the hypervisor, physical server, and the
hypervisor and what’s
applications running in it running inside it

Accelerating Oracle VM Templates offer pre-installed, pre-configured Virtual appliances are via a
Application virtual machines of enterprise software including CRM, community marketplace,
Deployment ERP, clustering, and management, enabling you to not vendor supported
deploy in minutes and hours as opposed to days and
weeks

Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder makes it easier to

package multi-tier applications and then deploy them
with the click of a button

Best practices for accelerating deployment of complete

virtual infrastructure via Oracle VM Reference
Configurations

3
http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/app-aware-346610.html

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Oracle VM vs. VMware Comparison
Continued from previous page

Reason Oracle VMware

High Availability Oracle offers high availability for the entire stack—not High availability is only at
just the hypervisor level the hypervisor level;
VMware is completely
Oracle views clustering and virtualization as unaware of application
complementary technologies crashes
Oracle VM customers can achieve additional high
availability from using Oracle Clusterware and Oracle
Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC)

Architected for Architected for low overhead when moving from Architecture is prone to
Efficiency physical to virtual servers inefficiency

Aggressive testing with real Oracle Database and

application workloads

Oracle has a single engineering team for Linux and

Oracle VM, leading to better optimization between Xen
and Linux

Integrated Support One call to Oracle; no finger pointing at another vendor Need to deal with
numerous vendors for the
Full stack is certified and supported complete stack and
Faster time to resolution management

Virtualization Built In addition to Oracle VM, Oracle offers virtualization Only offers x86
into the System built into its hardware and the Oracle Solaris operating virtualization
system

Oracle Solaris Containers and Oracle VM for SPARC

allows multiple applications to be run on a single system

Dynamic Domains are included in SPARC Enterprise M-

Series servers, enabling greater hardware utilization and
providing a high level of isolation from other domains

Comprehensive Oracle VM is available for both x86 and SPARC Only x86 platform is
Platform Support architectures supported

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Hard Partitioning with Oracle VM Server for x86
While Oracle has clarified its support policy and will, for the most part, support customers running the
Oracle database on VMware, it does not recognize VMware’s partitioning as a valid method of
controlling licensing costs.

Oracle’s VM server for x86 is specifically recognized by Oracle as a valid hard partitioning virtualization
server that allows for licensing, a subset of CPU’s known as sub-capacity licensing.

Oracle has published a white paper entitled, “Hard Partitioning with Oracle VM Server for x86”4 that
describes the specific approach an implementer must follow to take advantage of Oracle’s sub-CPU
licensing scenario. While a full description of this approach is beyond the scope of this paper, a
summary, including limitations, are provided below.

Oracle VM Server for x86 utilizes CPU pinning to bind Virtual CPUs (vCPUs) to physical CPUs. This
prevents the vCPUs from running workloads on physical CPUs other than the ones specified.

Utilizing the hard partitioning features of Oracle VM Server for x86 does limit some of the functionality
that can be utilized on these pinned CPUs. Specifically, live migrations are prohibited and therefore
Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and Distributed Power Management (DPM) cannot be utilized for
server pools containing pinned CPUs.

Oracle Real Application Cluster on Oracle VM Server for x86

A key criterion in today’s business-centric IT environment is a highly available and scalable database
environment. Oracle provides two different kinds of high availability mechanisms in an Oracle virtual
environment. Oracle VM High Availability is an implementation that is external to the database, while
Oracle Clusterware (used for Oracle RAC) is an implementation that is internal to the database.

Oracle overcomes the limitations inherent with server virtualization by clustering the database using
Oracle’ Real Application Cluster (RAC) and underlying technology such as Oracle Clusterware and Oracle
Automatic Storage Management (ASM). This combination of products running on a platform that is
using Oracle VM Server for x86 provides customers with a highly available and scalable architecture that
leverages all of the advantages of virtualization that is fully certified to work with the Oracle Database.
When properly configured, this architecture can also take advantage of hard partitioning.

What is RAC?5
A RAC database is a clustered database implemented on a series of independent servers architected to
work as a single system. A clustered database differs from a single instance database in a way that the
database can be accessed by multiple instances concurrently. Each instance runs on a separate server in
a cluster formed by Oracle Clusterware. When additional resources are required, additional nodes and

4
Hard Partitioning with Oracle VM Server for x86, an Oracle White Paper, June 2012
5
Oracle Real Application Clusters in Oracle VM Environments ,An Oracle Technical White Paper March 2012

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instances can easily be added to the cluster with no downtime. Once a new instance has been started,
applications using services can immediately take advantage of it with no changes to the application or
application server.

Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node is a new option to the Oracle Database 11g Release 2
Enterprise Edition. It improves upon many of the benefits of server virtualization and extends them to
databases running in physical server environments. It allows customers to virtualize database storage,
standardize their database environment and if required upgrade to a full RAC implementation without
downtime.

RAC One Node is fully compatible with Oracle VM Server, allowing customers to architect environments
that leverage the strengths of both RAC and server virtualization.

There are several reasons customers will want to run an Oracle RAC database in an Oracle VM
environment - one of the most important being the ability to use sub-capacity licensing. Other reasons
include consolidating workloads on under utilized servers, creating virtual clusters for test and
development, and rapidly provisioning new database instances.

Cost Advantages
Oracle’s favorable database licensing constraints combined with Oracle VM Server for x86, and a very
low cost for the hypervisor itself, in many instances Oracle delivers more value to customers than
VMware. To illustrate the cost advantages of an Oracle HA configuration compared to a standard
VMware configuration, the following scenario is presented:

 Two database instances need to be clustered for high availability;

the level of high availability is to be presented to the customer in the solutions
 For high availability, the CPU utilization for the Oracle database instances should be less than
50%; if a failure does occur, the database performance will not be impacted
 The database instances are sized as follows (including required capacity for failover):
o Instance #1 – 4 cores
o Instance #2 – 2 cores
 Hardware needs to be purchased to allow for an increase of 50% at the 24 month mark
 Additional capacity shall also be provided to allow for unexpected growth
 Present a Total Cost of Ownership (direct costs only) for each solution

In order to solve this scenario three solutions are presented for consideration:

 Active – Passive cluster using VMware

 RAC cluster using VMware
 RAC cluster using OVM

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Solution #1 – Active-Passive Cluster Using VMware
Conceptual Architecture
The diagram below depicts a conceptual perspective of a VMware cluster that will solve the business
scenario addressed above through an active-passive cluster.

In this solution two Sun Server X3-2s were purchased and built in a dedicated database cluster using
VMware and Oracle Enterprise Linux as the underlying operating systems/cluster solution. To properly
account for a failover condition, each server was sized with 16 cores to provide the required capacity for
the database workload, planned growth and unplanned growth.

See next page for Cost Analysis

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Cost Analysis
Oracle’s licensing scenario requires that all cores in the solution be licensed regardless of the capacity
requirements of the underlying database. Combining the Oracle DB licensing requirements with the
cost of VMware results in a 3 year Total Cost of Ownership of $1.32M.

VMware Cluster Solution

Server Cost Data Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total Cost
Servers each $11,350 $- $- $-
Quantity 2 $- $- $-
Capital Server Cost $22,700 $- $- $22,700
Annual Server Maintenance Cost $2,724 $2,724 $2,724 $8,172

Vmware Licensing $13,980 $- $- $13,980

Vmware support $3,336 $6,672 $6,672 $16,680
Linux Support Included Included Included $-
OVM Licensing N/A N/A N/A
OVM Support N/A N/A N/A

DB Cores Total 32
DB Cores Licenses purchased 32
Core Factor 0.5

Oracle DB Licensing $760,000 $- $- $760,000

RAC Licensing $- $- $- $-
Oracle Support $167,200 $167,200 $167,200 $501,600
Total 3 year TCO $1,323,132

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Solution #2 – RAC Cluster with VMware
Conceptual Architecture
This solution builds on Solution #1 by implementing a true active-active database cluster using RAC. In
this scenario VMware is allowed to manage the application virtual machines fail-over using its native
failover mechanisms..

See next page for Cost Analysis

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Cost Analysis
The costs associated with this solution incrementally add the RAC licenses to the costs specified in
Solution #1. Since VMware is still handling the failover of the applications, an additional application
specific server is not required.

VMware RAC Cluster Solution

Server Cost Data Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total Cost
Servers each $11,350 $- $- $-
Quantity 2 $- $- $-
Capital Server Cost $22,700 $- $- $22,700
Annual Server Maintenance
Cost $2,724 $2,724 $2,724 $8,172

Vmware Licensing $13,980 $- $- $13,980

Vmware support $3,336 $6,672 $6,672 $16,680
Linux Support Included Included Included $-
OVM Licensing N/A N/A N/A
OVM Support N/A N/A N/A

DB Cores Total 32
DB Cores Licenses purchased 32
Core Factor 0.5

Oracle DB Licensing $760,000 $- $- $760,000

RAC Licensing $368,000 $- $- $368,000
Oracle Support $248,160 $248,160 $248,160 $744,480
Total 3 year TCO $1,934,012

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Solution #3 – RAC Cluster with OVM
Conceptual Architecture
The diagram below depicts a conceptual perspective of an Oracle RAC Cluster with OVM that will solve
the business scenario addressed above through an active-active cluster.

In this solution, two Sun Server X3-2s were purchased and built in a database cluster using Oracle RAC,
Enterprise Linux and Oracle Virtual Machine as the underlying operating systems/cluster solution. In
order to properly account for a failover condition, each server was sized with 16 cores to provide the
required capacity for the database workload, planned growth and unplanned growth.

Since hard partitioning is deployed, Dynamic Resource Scheduler and Distributed Power Management
cannot be utilized for server pool Distributed Power Management (DPM). Therefore, an additional OVM
Server pool would need to be added specifically for the application failover.

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Cost Analysis
Oracle’s licensing scenario allows for hard partitioning of a server to limit the cores that are needed for
the database workloads. Since the RAC licenses need to match the database licenses, the customer also
gains the cost effects of hard partitioning with RAC.

To ensure that the comparison between a VMware and OVM-based active-active clusters was
consistent, an additional server pool was added to confirm that DRS and DPM were available to support
application failover.

RAC Cluster Solution with OVM

Server Cost Data Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total
Servers each $11,350 $- $- $-
Quantity 4 $- $- $-
Capital Server Cost $45,400 $- $- $45,400
Annual Server Maintenance Cost $5,448 $5,448 $5,448 $16,344

VMware Licensing N/A N/A N/A

VMware support N/A N/A N/A
Linux Support Included Included Included
OVM Licensing Included Included Included
OVM Support Included Included Included

DB Cores Total 32
DB Cores Licensed 12 6
Core Factor 0.5 0.5

Oracle DB Licensing $285,000 $- $142,500 $427,500

RAC Licensing $138,000 $- $69,000 $207,000
Oracle Support $93,060 $93,060.00 $139,590 $325,710
Total 3 year TCO $1,021,954

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Summary
Server virtualization is a mainstream method for deploying many applications in an enterprise. Tier 1
applications, which often include the Oracle database, have been the last holdout. With Oracle VM
Server for x86, Oracle has created a solution that is engineered specifically to work with Oracle products,
including the database.

Oracle Virtualization Machine is a robust virtualization solution that provides features similar to
VMware, but has been engineered to be application aware. This application aware concept provides
Oracle virtual machines with visibility into what is running inside the virtual machine and can provision
and manage applications, middleware, and databases. OVM—unlike VMware—is free to download and
use, resulting in an overall lower cost.

One of OVM’s more valuable features is its ability to implement hard partitioning in such a way that
supports Oracle’s sub-capacity licensing requirements.

Combining OVM with Oracle RAC for a database cluster can have a dramatic positive impact on a
database environment’s overall Total Cost of Ownership. The table below provides a summary of the
TCO for the 3 solutions:

Solution # Description Database Clustering 3 year TCO

1 VMware Cluster Active-Passive $1,323,132
2 VMware with RAC Active-Active $1,934,012
3 OVM with RAC Active-Active $1,036,342

In summary, Dewpoint understands that Oracle database licensing is a complicated and costly part of an
overall IT infrastructure. In order to limit costs while providing a highly available database environment,
the proper implementation of OVM with RAC can provide a significant cost savings over a three-year
period.

Dewpoint also understands that each company’s environment is different and unique. Therefore, we
have developed a process and proprietary application to that uses Total Cost of Ownership to help
customers understand the true costs associated with their database environment and to create
solutions that will allow them to limit that cost.

Contact Dewpoint Today

For more information and to begin investigating how your company can take advantage of these
technologies to reduce costs and improve efficiencies.

www.dewpoint.com/RunITBetter | 888-DEWPOINT | contactus@dewpoint.com

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