In our last post on virtualisation, we highlighted that some freeware was easy to get working out of the box (eg Microsoft Office 2010 Beta). Other vendor products were far too complex and requires guru status to even get started.
This was an obvious disadvantage for Oracle as the strategy to offer freeware was pointless if very few could actually get to enjoy the ride. Things appear to have moved on. Oracle have now taken a major step towards simplifying the availability and usability of their product portfolio by introducing a series of VM templates which are fully pre-installed, pre-configured applications and infrastructure all packaged into a single instance that can be uplodaded into a virtual machine running on VMware. All of which is free!
For example, an Oracle VM Template may include a single virtual machine, with a single Oracle product such as a single-instance database or WebLogic Server or multiple VMs with multiple Oracle products to facilitate rapid deployment of even the most complex composite applications such as E-Business Suite, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne,PeopleSoft HCM, or Siebel CRM.
Initial experience of this technology is that it is still relatively complex as it’s all based on Linux. However, it is certainly a great deal simpler than having to install the application stack from scratch.
It is a step in the right direction and will likely increase the accessibility of the Oracle portfolio to more developers and technogeeks. We look forward to increased productivity and less time installing the array of inter-dependent applications and infrastructure in favour of faster time to investigate the applications of the technology.
This is a great move and one that I will be exploring in some detail for a range of Oracle products that are freely available for download and evaluation. Geek heaven!!
