Oracle steps into virtualization market

The youthful and yet still somehow crowded virtualization market is now getting even more cramped, as Oracle has introduced a new virtualization product that they tout as the next best thing. Oracle VM, as it is called, isn't exactly a completely new endeavor – they are relying on the Xen hypervisor. This is not surprising at all, as Red Hat picked Xen as their hypervisor of choice and Oracle relies heavily on Red Hat for their own distro.

One area they might have a bit of advantage in is in user support. Whereas many vendors, such as Apple and Microsoft, have been leery about officially supporting running their software inside a virtual machine, Oracle is committing to full support of their products inside virtual environments. They also claim their software is faster than the competitors, though I would take that assertion with a grain of salt.

As is par for the course in virtualization, the VM itself will be available free, though support for it will carry a hefty price tag.