In this section, we will see some of the configuration possibilities of Oracle VM Manager. The deployment of Oracle VM can be done in several ways. The server pools within Oracle VM platform is the best way to go about when setting up the Oracle VM farm. The following diagram will make it a bit easier to understand how the pools are built:
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Let's take a closer look at the various components that play a key role in defining what type of Oracle Cloud farm we can build with Oracle's VM platform:
Oracle VM Manager Host: This machine will typically have Oracle's VM Manager installed. This is the place for us to be in order to carry out all of the administrative tasks. This can be done locally or can be done remotely depending on customer requirements.
Oracle VM Servers: These are typically the servers that come embedded with a Xen hypervisor installation. A typical server can perform three different functions—the Server pool master function, the Utility function, or merely the VM Server function. The VM Agent is responsible for interacting with those functions and the VM Manager, thus notifying the user of the role(s) of the specific server.
Server Pool Master role: This role is special for the server and interfaces with the outside world by communicating with the utility and VM servers. It also provides the load balancing capabilities by assigning the VM a VM Server that has the maximum resources available. We can only have one Server Pool Master in a pool.
Utility Server role: This server will carry out heavy I/O tasks such as copy, move, and so on. A typical Virtual Data Center can have loads of ISO files and templates that are deployed across VM Servers. We will see more of this in the Oracle VM Management chapter. We can have several Utility Servers. The Pool Master Server chooses the Utility Server with maximum available CPU resources to carry out the intensive tasks, thus balancing the load.
VM Server role: The main role of these servers is to host VMs. The Oracle VM agent installed on these servers communicates with the Utility Servers, Pool Master Server, and other VM Servers, thus aggregating all of the resources within the machines as a Single Logical Unit (SLU) to form a Sustainable Global Cloud Center.
Server Pools: Multiple Server Pools can be created within a Data Center. For instance, Pool 1 could be a pool for a typical production environment for an enterprise customer, Pool 2 could be a typical production pool for an SMB customer, and Pool 3 can be a SMB+ customer's delight. The pools act and function as logical units within a Data Center.
Storage: Storage could be local as well as part of a storage area network (SAN). Shared storage such as iSCSI or FC is necessary in order to perform live migration of VMs between VM Servers.