Oracle is expanding the role it seeks to play in enterprise
virtualization by augmenting a former Sun Microsystems approach to
desktop virtualization, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, now in
release 3.2.
Oracle VDI 3.2 is a comprehensive approach, starting with a
virtualized host, standardized desktop images that run on a server
and provide services to end users, which includes delivery of high
performance multimedia, such as video and graphics. In addition, it
includes a management console, explained Wim Coekaerts, senior VP
of Linux and Virtualization Engineering. "This is the first major
release of VDI branded with the Oracle look and feel. Oracle is
thoroughly committed to the desktop virtualization space,"
Coekaerts said in an interview.
Desktop applications run on central servers under the Oracle VM
hypervisor, a version of the Xen open source hypervisor. IT
managers will have a broad set of choices in how they set the
applications up. Oracle VM can run virtual machine applications
using Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Oracle
Enterprise Linux, Canonical's Ubuntu or Novell's SUSE Linux
Enterprise Desktop. The applications' services are sought by end
users logging into the central server, with the application
presentation being sent down the wire to devices that may be PCs,
Macs and laptops or Oracle Sun Ray thin clients, Coekaerts
explained. VDI 3.2 includes directory services that can make use of
multiple identity management directories, helping enterprises serve
end users who may be located in different domains or facilities.
More than one data center can be spanned by VDI 3.2, and in the
event of the loss of virtual servers at one data center, requests
can be redirected to an alternate site, Coekaerts said.
Virtual desktop administrators may establish Windows desktop
images, and end users may provision themselves with one of the
images through VDI 3.2. The underlying Windows images can be
updated while the images are in use, preserving individual user
settings and data in the process. The capability avoids disruption,
while saving space on disk that would be needed if the process
required swapping new images for old.
Coekaerts said a competitive advantage for Oracle over VMware and
Microsoft is that Oracle doesn't depend on Windows 7 to manage a
video stream to the client. The Oracle VM hypervisor can detect the
nature of the end user device and send a compressed video stream
itself, allowing it to direct high speed video to Linux devices
without depending on the Windows 7 version of Remote Desktop
Protocol. Both VMware and Microsoft's Hyper-V depend on RDP in
Windows 7, Coekaerts said.
"We do it lower down in the stack than in Windows 7. We emulate a
video device in the hypervisor. Windows sees the (emulated) device
and sends the video there," and the hypervisor is able to transfer
it to the end user device in the appropriate format, even if the
client is a Linux machine, he said.
In May, Oracle issued a patch update to Sun's Virtual Desktop
Infrastructure, release 3.1. Wednesday's announcement is the first
release of VDI under the Oracle brand with an Oracle look and feel
to the product. "It's only been a few months since the
acquisition," said Coekaerts. "We know what we want to do with this
product going forward."