Let’s be honest, Virtualbox is really thriving under current Oracle management and becoming a real cool (if not already – i think so…) product. I am using it for test or training purposes, creating importable appliances and a lots of other purposes, on my iMac, Windows or other desktop environments. Having a look at the new 4.1 enhancements, I am really looking forward towards Oracle Open World in a few weeks time to get some additional info via presentations and / or hands-on labs. Okay, there is still stiff on my wish list, so Wim C. if your reading in… 
VMware has already a long time a great import tool which can be used, for amongst others, import/migrate a server (running real time / real OS, hardware) into a VM environment, besides all possible conversions between VM formats or backup/image sources. This would be a great first FAST step migrating real hardware into a virtualized environment. Another one would be cross compatibility between Oracle VM environments and Virtualbox (and vice versa). For now the 4.1 release is a great step forward. As mentioned on the Virtualbox 4.1 press release page…
- Powerful new virtual machine cloning: A new facility allows users to easily create clones from existing VMs or even specific snapshots. To save space, users can also now create full clones or linked clones.
- Enhanced large system support: Introduces support for hosts and guest virtual machines (VMs) with up to 1TB RAM, as well as scalability for over a thousand VMs on a single host.
- Improved remote access: When accessing virtual machines remotely, the VM can now see and use all monitors as if they were locally connected.
- Expanded platform support: Delivers host and guest support for the latest Windows, Linux, Oracle Solaris and Mac platforms.
- Support for Windows Aero: Allows Windows 7 guests to use transparency and other Aero effects.
- Enhanced support for guest VM scripting: Enables administrators to create automated actions for virtual machines that can copy files, perform setup, configuration tasks and more.
Also a lot of pre prepped appliances are now available for download:
- Java Development VM
- Database App Development VM
- SOA & BPM Development VM
- Enterprise Java Development VM
- Oracle WebCenter Portal Framework 11g Hands-on VM
- Oracle Solaris 11 Express Developer VM
- Oracle Solaris 11 Express Network Virtualization VM
- Oracle Tuxedo Web Application Server Demo VM
- Enterprise PHP Development VM
If I only had the time to fiddle around with all off them. Anyway, enough fun until Christmas.
1 comment
1 ping
chet
14 September, 2011 at 20:13 (UTC 1) Link to this comment
I love VirtualBox. I have 5 VMs running right now in fact. 2 for work (XP), one for my wiki/SVN (Ubuntu 11.04), and one for OEL 5 with 11gR21, OBIEE 11.1.1.5, Web Tier and Informatica running on it. OK, 4, not 5.
Just to add to your list, OBIEE has a great Sample application available, it’s just not linked on the main pre-built VM page, you can find it here.
Oracle XMLDB XQuery Update in Database Release 11.2.0.3.0 « AMIS Technology blog
22 September, 2011 at 11:28 (UTC 1) Link to this comment
[...] that has most of the slide info of the webcast. It doesn’t contain the demo’s or extra Virtualbox OTN Developer Day Appliance first steps info, of course, and what to do to reset the training XMLDB environment in this [...]