Introducing Oracle VM VirtualBox
- by Fat Bloke
I guess these things always take longer than expected and, while the dust is still not completely settled in all the ex-Sun geographies, it is high time we started looking at some of the great new assets in the Oracle VM portfolio. So let's start with one of the most exciting: Oracle VM VirtualBox. VirtualBox is cross-platform virtualization software, oftentimes called a hypervisor, and it runs on Windows, Linux, Solaris and the Mac. Which means that you download it, you install it on your existing platform, and start creating and running virtual machines alongside your existing applications. For example, on my Mac I can run Oracle Enterprise Linux and Windows 7 alongside my Mac apps like this...(Click to zoom)VirtualBox use has grown
phenomenally to the point that at Sun it was the 3rd most
popular download behind Java and MySQL. Its success can be attributed
to the fact that it doesn't need dedicated hardware, it can be
installed on either client or server classes of computers, is very
easy to use and is free for personal use. And, as you might
expect, VirtualBox has it's own vibrant community too, over at
www.virtualbox.org
There are hundreds of tutorials out
there about how to use VirtualBox to create vm's and install
different operating systems ranging from Windows
7 to ChromeOS,
and if you don't want to install an operating system yourself, you
can download pre-built virtual appliances from community sites such
as VirtualBox
Images or commercial companies selling subscriptions to whole
application stacks, such as JumpBox
. In no time you'll be creating and sharing your own vm's using the
VirtualBox
OVF export and import function.
VirtualBox is deceptively powerful.
Under the simple GUI lies a formidable engine capable of running
heavyweight multi-CPU virtual workloads, exhibiting Enterprise
capabilities including a built-in remote display server, an iSCSI
initiator for connecting to shared storage, and the ability to
teleport running vm's from one host to another. And for solution
builders, you should be aware that VirtualBox has a scriptable
command line interface and an SDK
and rich web service APIs.
To get a further feel for what
VirtualBox is capable of, check out some of these short
movies or simply go download
it for yourself.- FB
