Server virtualization in the library using Oracle Virtual Machine: does x86 virtualization even
support saving on
software licence fees
Marton József Ernő <>
BME OMIKK
Nagy Elemér Károly <>
BME OMIKK
It is more than a half year now that BME OMIKK's use of Oracle Virtual Machine (OVM) turned into production phase. We're running Aleph integrated library management system on the OVM platform. We're going to introduce our motivation to move to this virtualization platform, present its infrastructural needs, compromises we have made and the operational experiences we have gained.
In general, motivation for virtualization include more efficient hardware and operational resource utilisation, isolation of different applications etc. In some cases also savings on licence fees can be achieved using some virtualization platform. There's no free lunch, but the cost we nowdays need to pay is not that much in the sense of processing performance. Due to the hardware-supported virtualization in today's x86 64 CPUs virtualization upon moderated cost hardware can give comparable performance to native environments. Ensuring low-level isolation is not an option any more: it is by default available.