Are dedicated hosts available?
Yes, Dedicated Virtual Machine Hosts (DVHs) are available in OCI. They represent a "middle ground" rental model that combines the hardware isolation of Bare Metal with the easy management of Virtual Machines.
When you rent a Dedicated Host, you aren't just renting a slice of a server; you are renting the entire physical machine for your exclusive use, but Oracle still manages the hypervisor for you.
In a standard VM rental, your "neighbors" on the physical hardware are other Oracle customers. With a Dedicated Host:
You provision a physical host (e.g., an AMD E4 or Intel X9 host).
You then "carve up" that host by launching multiple VMs onto it.
No other customer can place a VM on that specific physical server.
There are three main reasons customers choose this model over standard VMs:
Compliance & Regulatory Requirements: Some industries (like finance or healthcare) have "physical isolation" mandates that forbid sharing a server's CPU or memory with any other company.
Licensing Optimization: Some software (like older versions of Windows Server or SQL Server) is licensed per-host or per-socket. By renting the entire host, you can often save significantly on licensing costs by "packing" as many VMs as possible onto that licensed hardware.
Security: It eliminates even the theoretical risk of "side-channel attacks" (like Spectre or Meltdown) that could occur if a malicious neighbor were on the same physical chip.
The billing for Dedicated Hosts differs from standard VMs:
You pay for the host, not the VMs: You are billed a flat hourly rate for the dedicated host as soon as it is created, regardless of whether you have 1 VM or 20 VMs running on it.
No VM hourly charge: The individual VMs you launch on your dedicated host do not incur their own OCPU or RAM charges (though you still pay for the block storage/boot volumes they use).
Premium Pricing: Dedicated Hosts generally carry a price premium compared to the equivalent "list price" of the cores if you were using them as standard VMs.
| Feature | Dedicated VM Host | Bare Metal Server |
| Hypervisor | Managed by Oracle | None (You install your own or none) |
| Management | Familiar VM-style management | Like a physical "pizza box" server |
| Flexibility | Can run multiple small VMs | Usually one large OS instance |
| Best For | Compliance & Licensing | Raw Performance & HPC |
Available Shapes: Dedicated hosts are available for AMD (E3/E4/E5), Intel (X7/X9), and Arm (A1).
Launch Time: It takes about 15 minutes for OCI to prepare the physical host before you can start launching VMs on it.
Always On: Because you are renting the physical asset, you are billed as long as the host exists, even if all the VMs on it are "Stopped."