Regarding the ongoing debate about using Oracle technology on VMware (a non-Oracle third party product), for such an environment, Oracle will only support issues that "are known to occur on the native OS, or can be demonstrated not to be as a result of running on VMware,"
"If a problem is a known Oracle issue, Oracle support will recommend the appropriate solution on the native OS," this is as per a Metalink document which adds "If that solution does not work in the VMware virtualized environment, the customer will be referred to VMware for support."
The implications of these statements are very serious. If there is an unknown issue, the client will be asked to reproduce the issue on non-VMware! VMware is not certified by Oracle for any of its single-instance or RAC databases. So, running Oracle production on a uncertified platform like VMware is not recommended and responsible IT managers would certainly prefer certified platforms. I know, if I was an IT manager, I would not want to put Oracle production on uncertified systems simply because of support issues. And for those VMware enthusiasts who say this is ok since Oracle doesnt certify any non-Oracle hardware anyway, I would say their equating VMware with hardware is very wrong. It is software, like an OS, rather than hardware. So would you run a production Oracle database on an uncertified OS? I guess not.
Of course, if virtualization is required, use Oracle VM and the issue is solved - Oracle will support the full stack, from virtualization software to app server to database. And we can also go inside the virtual machine and do performance analysis of the database, and deep management using Enterprise Manager! The third-party VMware has nothing like these powerful Oracle deep management tools to manage Oracle technology.
On another note, I just installed Oracle VIRTUAL BOX on Windows and am astonished how easy and flexible it is to use, instead of VMware workstation. My personal opinions of course in all my comments.
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