Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) took the wraps off Oracle Virtual Machine 3.0 earlier this week, its enterprise-level solution comprised of a VM Server for x86 and a VM Manager environment for managing the entire virtual infrastructure using browser-based tools. Indeed, all network and storage configurations can be managed within VM Manager, while Oracle VM will discover (physical) servers and storage automatically.

It's clear from the sharply enhanced capabilities that Oracle is making a serious bid for the virtualization space. Indeed, Oracle claims that VM 3.0 scales up four times better and delivers on all the storage-management features of incumbent VMware--but costs less.

As reported on eWeek, Oracle VM 3.0 has demonstrated support for up to 160 physical CPUs and 2TB memory using Oracle's Sun Fire X4800 M2 servers. With VM 3.0, it is also possible to create guests with up to 128 virtual CPUs, though one may argue about the usefulness of such a VM.

Oracle VM is available as a free download with no licenses required for use. Support for businesses is offered through a subscription model, which starts at $599 per system.

For more:
- check out this article at ReadWriteWeb
- check out this article at ZDNet
- check out this article at eWeek 

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