Oracle has just updated its virtualization software, bringing it up to speed with its more illustrious rivals VMware Inc. and Microsoft.

The newly released Oracle VM 3.4 is the first edition of the software to feature storage live migration, something that’s been available in VMware’s more popular vSphere offering for some time (as well as Microsoft’s Hyper-V). Storage live migration makes it possible to alter a VM’s storage device while keeping that same VM up and running, a useful addition in a world of private clouds and aggregated resources.

In addition, Oracle’s VM now runs the latest version of Xen, 4.4, which is capable of scaling VMs to 256 virtual CPUs per guest.

Another upgrade shows us that Oracle has embraced the open virtualization format for the first time, granting users the ability to import and export .OVA files. Oracle VM also now supports fiber channel over Ethernet and boot-from-EUFI. Finally, Oracle says that everything has been made faster, and there’s a few security enhancements too.

Of course, it’s unlikely that any of these new upgrades will help push Oracle beyond “niche player’ status (in Gartner Inc.’s eyes) in the field of virtualization. That’s because, as The Register puts it so bluntly, “Oracle just isn’t at the forefront of x86 server virtualization”. It’s a statement that largely rings true, because for Oracle, virtualization has never been a priority. Instead it seems to have just grudgingly accepted virtualization as a necessity, which means it puts in just enough effort to keep it in step with VMware and Microsoft, without ever wishing to play catch up.

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