Oracle VirtualBox... a good thing.

Now as anyone who knows me me will confirm, I have always been a long admirer of VMWare and their suite of excellent virtualisation products. I started with Workstation before switching to Fusion on OS X and finally made the jump to the way cool ESXi a few years back (I blogged about this here).

Recently however, I am finding less and less time to install guest linux OS, configuring it for use with an Oracle Database (or Application Server), making sure all the RPM's, kernel values are correct etc. Yes you can use the Oracle Validated Packages to help simplify this (see Tims comments below for how to obtain these) but what I really value these days is the simplest configuration for home / home office use that is pretty much turn on and play.

After a quick trawl of the Virtual Appliances section of the VM Market Place, I was left wanting until I remembered that Oracle were now dabbling in the Virtual Machine space. After a quick dl of VirtualBox (their virtualisation offering) and a pre-built development database, I was up an running within 30 mins. Firthermore I have it running on 2G of memory and 1 CPU locally on my MacBook Pro.

I must say I was very impressed with the build of the VM itself, the interface of VirtualBox and just how simple it was to get a "throw away" vm running that covers 99% of my day to day needs.

I have to admit, I am struggling to justify moving back to a costed option of VMWare and can only see the number of pre-built virtual machines increasing, plus it's the best price... free (however if you want to run this outside of a lab environment, I would strongly recommend joining the Oracle Premier Support program).

Good job Oracle.

Comments

Tim... said…
Hi.

Just a quick clarification. The oracle-validated package (OL5) and the oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall (OL6) are available from public-yum.oracle.com, so you don't need a ULN subscription. :)

Imagree, the Oracle supplied images are cool. :)

Cheers

Tim...
17 June 2012 at 15:15
Noons said…
Indeed! One of the few good things to come out of Oracle in the last few years.
18 June 2012 at 09:16
Amardeep Sidhu said…
Yeap indeed. This pre built machine thing is just awesome ! Download and done !
18 June 2012 at 18:01
Duncan said…
Tim. Thanks for pointing that out about the oracle-validated package. Good to know that they are freely available for those interested in learning to install Oracle onto Linux for a more "production" representation.

Duncs
19 June 2012 at 19:14
Duncan said…
Noons

I would also add Application Express (APEX) and OBIEE (although bought in) to the list as well. Both awesome products :)

Duncs
19 June 2012 at 19:15
Simon Hunt said…
Agreed, put it on my Mac Mini last week, downloaded the prebuilt Web App build and was up and running in minutes. Cool :)
19 June 2012 at 20:37
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