Oracle VirtualBox Information Reviews & Insights

Our main operation system is windows but as we develop software which runs on linux based servers, we use Oracle VM VirtualBox to develop and test software. This way we can rebuild a system which is comparable to our live servers. Besides developing and testing software, we also test new versions of libraries etc. within the VM first before we update our servers - this way we avoid having problems with dependencies between libraries.

It is very easy to set up a virtual machine with Oracle VM VirtualBox because it is very intuitive. It also works an every operation system and allows taking snapshots and cloning VMs which is pretty helpful to e.g. save stable states and return to a functioning version in case something wents wrong. Also it has some features like drag&drop which enables you to copy and paste from your main operating system into your vm and vice versa. Oracle VM VirtualBox is very well suited when multiple kinds of interworking software (e.g. some microservices, a webservice) are developed and tested like on our production servers. Sometimes container based software is more useful than Oracle VM VirtualBox, e.g. when only one specific software needs to be tested in a fresh environment.

I personally use VirtualBox to test applications. With VirtualBox, I can test the application without even installing it on my actual machine, and doing this protects my device from any damages. For example, if I accidentally select the wrong settings for the application I am testing, the changes only affect my Virtual Machine and this is a great advantage for me. I also use different operating systems for work and for personal purposes thus I use VirtualBox to install another operating system (like Linux) without removing the one I already use (Windows).

It is best suited when you want to have different operating systems on your laptop or desktop. You can easily switch between operating systems without the need to uninstall one. In another scenario, if you expect some application to damage your device, it would be best to run the application on the VM such that the damage can only be done to the virtual machine. It is less appropriate when time synchronization is very important. At times the VMs run their own times differently from the host time and this may cause some losses if what you doing is critical. Another important thing to take note of is the licensing of the application you want to run your VM. Some licenses do not allow the applications to be run on virtual servers so it is not appropriate to use the VM at this time.

Oracle's VirtualBox is a good tool if you don't want to invest in a whole testing infrastructure (server racks and so on) for a small to medium environment where you don't need to have everything up and running every time you need to test the smallest things. The fact that you can easily switch between VMs (one at a time or even with more than one on online state) is a big plus.

Oracle VM VirtualBox is used to house VM's to test different applications on Virtual machines in order to validate functionality without the worry of compromising a real system and having to start over. We also use these VM's to obfuscate access to our production environments by first accessing a VM then connecting to a VPN from that virtual machine.

Being able to build VM's to test different applications on Virtual machines in order to validate functionality without the worry of compromising a real system and having to start over is one of the greatest strengths of using an application like VirtualBox, and it does this well. The many options to create a VM of differing operating systems and functionality [make it] very simple and easy to do with this application.

VirtualBox is the tool we use to generate virtual machines in development environments. Either as much as to run Windows or Linux from Mac OS, or Windows from Linux. We have the need to have computers with the possibility of running these operating systems since the programs that we use for the industry are not all multiplatform.

VirtualBox is an excellent option when it comes to virtualizing an operating system in an easy and safe way. Add controls on how much hardware of the host machine is going to be dedicated to the virtual one, configure which ports are accessible from each one, etc. However, like any virtual machine, if you need to use many of the hardware resources for the virtual machine, it is recommended to use a native installation of the virtual machine, since the performance of both (host and virtual) can be affected considerably.

Oracle VM VirtualBox is being used across the development department, mostly to run training environments. This helps us prepare preconfigured VMs with all the tools our engineers need to complete their training at different levels throughout their careers. Providing these training environments was always a challenge before, and after trying cloud options to provide online instances of the training environment, we decided to create these VMs and give offline options on a as-needed basis for our employees and avoid costs from having a growing cloud server capacity.

The most common scenarios for me where Oracle VM VirtualBox is well suited are when you want to create reusable resources and shared them on VMs for many users as a standalone solution and when you want to try things between different operating systems, you can opt for a VM to test things out without affecting the host system.

VirtualBox is being used on an as-needed basis by engineers throughout the organization. The most common use-case is developers using Linux but needing some Windows features (such as Microsoft Teams, which isn't supported on Linux with govcloud). It can also be used in the case where software is being developed that's multi-platform. In this case, VirtualBox's capability of sharing file systems between the host and VM allows for easy compilation on multiple platforms, writing code on the host machine and having those changes instantly reflected in the virtual machine via file sharing.

It's great for personal use, effectively allowing a user to have "N operating systems on 1 box," but isn't appropriate for situations where the process of provisioning and configuring a new machine will happen repeatedly. For this, puppet, docker, or similar would be more appropriate. Another potential workflow would be where a user is only working with one operating system at a time, and changes between them are infrequent. For this, a boot manager such as grub would be more appropriate.

Oracle VM VirtualBox is being heavily used to recreate network designs on servers for both troubleshooting purposes as well as deployment scenarios. VMs are generally created to host applications or programs that act as the building blocks for network, which are then imported into GNS3 for laying out the foundation of the network topology. Using such a solution allows the company to save on resources and makes better use of the available resources on the Server stack.

VirtualBox is well suited in the following environments:

• Organizations that are resource constrained.
• Organizations that want to get full utilization of server capacity can use the platform. Since it is free to download and use.
• Universities use the platform to educate students on the basics of virtualization as well as for assignments.
  
• Organizations that have a low or strict budget use virtualization to reduce the costs.

Our testing and core engineering teams are collaboratively using Oracle VM VirtualBox to test the performance and quality of our various standalone applications on different operating systems. When creating applications that run on a consumer's system locally, there is a great deal of uncertainty on whether the given application will work under all types of environments such as type of OS, OS architecture, amount of hardware resources, etc. We are using Oracle VM VirtualBox to eliminate these uncertainties.

Oracle VM VirtualBox is the best solution out there when it comes to enterprise-level virtualization. It is well-suited for most scenarios, unless you require extreme performance or advanced DirectX or OpenGL graphics in your use-case. If you need to cluster your virtualization environments together, you probably want to use VMWare.

We use the software in our NOC, as a laboratory, to conduct tests and train staff in new network technologies. This helps us to predict future problems and improve our infrastructure.