Hi there,

You probably heard about XenServer 7.3 release and some of its features removed.

So, I started a GitHub organization called "xcp-ng", hosting all the repo needed to make a XenServer OS from the sources. It's 100% community backed.

I actually hired (part time but still) an former XAPI developer, so it will accelerate the pace soon. I think we'll be able to release something in Q1, without any feature restriction (think vGPU + everything) and turnkey as XenServer itself.

If it works well, the door for including directly extra stuff in the project is opened: our Gluster driver for example (and a Ceph driver too), better compression algorithm, CentOS packages available, community contribution etc.

Obviously, we'll start small (probably re-using bunch of existing RPMs), but then we'll try to build more and more from the sources. But the ultimate goal is to have just a RPM repo to install from a CentOS and then use yum upgrade to stay up-to-date!

All contributions are welcome, if you want to join the GitHub org, feel free to ask!

Hi there,

Just to let you know I recently made initial tests to put XenServer in another level. I know it seems really important for some of you here to have an hyperconverged solution for XenServer (@scottalanmiller )

I got initial successful test, in a very minimal scenario, so it's just a start.

Context

• a pool of only XenServer 2 nodes (nothing else, no NAS/SAN)
• only using local storage

Objectives

• a loss of one host won't affect storage for any running VM on the other host
• allow live migration between two host without disk transfer
• no split-brain scenario even in 2 nodes context
• no SPOF
• no XenServer system modification

Results

Worked as expected in first tests.

Limitations

• a bit of RAM and storage will be needed to provide this
• it relies on dedicated VMs (one per host) to expose it
• it uses a iSCSI SR in multipath

Ideal objective

XOA would be able to download and deploy all the needed stuff inside an existing infrastructure (depending if there is enough resources obviously). So a "one click to install my virtual SAN" would be totally possible.

Also, there is very interesting possibilities for more nodes scenario (not just replicating, but distributing the content AND duplicate it to allow correct performances).

I think it's better to regroup a little bit all the recent conversations around XO in this topic (if it's fine?). It will be better for me to have one place to follow here than checking for new topics about it

Documentation

The first place to go before asking questions! https://xen-orchestra.com/docs/

Quick links:

• General architecture
• Install
• Main features
• Contributing

Quick intro

XO is a kind of middle-ware between you and multiple XenServer hosts. It doesn't require any XenServer setup: it works out of the box.

With XO, you can manage, backup, delegate your XenServer infrastructure.

Business model

If you are a company and you want a turnkey solution with support: XOA which contains:

• a virtual appliance with XO installed (nothing to do)
• an automatic updater (one click to upgrade)
• corporate support and full priority to fix any issue
• QA is done on XOAs, code/dependencies are "frozen" between releases

If you are not interested by the turnkey solution, you can install it from the sources, you'll have ALL XO features, but no XOA features (the previous given list). If the solution begin to go in production in your company, we strongly suggest to get a XOA to avoid any source problem. It's also paid customers which help to continue to work full time on this

Things to know

• You can complain about the UI, it's already planned to rewrite it from scratch in the next months
• I'm the project leader (and CEO of the company selling it), feel free to ask me anything
• We like to be transparent about how it works to build a project like this. Sharing thoughts is always positive.
• I'm personally convince that more brains are working on a topic, better it is: tell me your needs or ideas, it's always a good thing!
• I've got no problem with critics, go ahead
• We are a very small company, 100% dedicated on XO. We don't have 100 engineer working on it (not even 10)

I'll keep to update this post.

Custom builds

Here, I'll post link to scripts/stuff from people here to create a functional XO installation quickly.

Keep in touch

We try to release every 15 days. I'll write at least one or two blog post per week here: https://xen-orchestra.com/blog/

I put the new articles on Twitter if you want to follow: https://twitter.com/xenorchestra

If you are a XO user, reading the blog is really helpful to catch last features and how to's

Hey there! I'm seriously thinking about hiring a tech for doing XO support, ideally based in the US (where most of our users are). We are reaching a "critical mass" of users, and I would like to delegate level 1 issues (at the start) to someone external (not my devs or myself).

Do you have any tips on where should I look? Obviously, it's remote work at 100%.

I said Q1 for the first release. On schedule. https://xcp-ng.github.io/news/2018/03/31/first-xcp-ng-release.html

First PoC is here: https://xcp-ng.github.io/news/2018/01/22/xcp-ng-on-tracks.html

Have 7 min to read something?

Here is some bits about Vates, the startup behind Xen Orchestra: https://medium.com/@olivier.lambert/building-a-tech-startup-in-france-cc369c0865db#.wpayxisd7

Sorry about my English in this article, but I wanted to share this story here

@scottalanmiller It's planned to release file level restore in next release (~15 days) if everything go smooth.

haha nice try @Francesco-Provino This is foolish to think that

First, this is not true. Then, the number of active Xen users is growing (a reasonable part is due to XCP-ng). And even the number of contributors (also thanks to us).

Xen, by design, is more secure than the other "big" Open Source alternative. The only downside is that's requiring more knowledge to move it forward.

The main issues was 1. Citrix acquiring it but not pushing it fast enough, because not being part of their core skills and 2. not having any Open Source knowledge.

As a true type 1, you can accomplish great things, and yes it requires some efforts. That's exactly the reason why we are partnering with bigger players to really show the true potential of Xen

Maybe you lack the understanding of scale. Xen dev was built and maintained by a relatively small number of people, and despite that, got it working better than most competitor. And you can indeed consider us as a small player right now, but we are roughly doubling each year. Just next year, we'll have more people working on Xen that Citrix itself.

I hope this tells a bit on Xen's future

edit: just few example of driving Xen innovation:

• https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2021/09/14/runx-next-generation-secured-containers/ (in partnership with Stefano from Xilinx)
• https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2021/07/12/dpus-and-the-future-of-virtualization/ (in partnership with Kalray, a CPU manufacturer)
• https://vates.fr/blog/vates-joins-riscv-international/ (porting Xen to RISC-V)
• https://vates.fr/blog/kalray-vates-and-scaleway-alliance/ (alliance with a large Cloud company, Scaleway)

It's a LOT of innovation for a dying project. But well, I'm used to hear that Xen is dead for the last 10 years, so you are not the first to be wrong on this

Hi lads!

I'm XO's project leader

• @scottalanmiller XO does provide DR features, see https://xen-orchestra.com/docs/disaster_recovery.html
• @johnhooks it's all Open Source (aGPLv3). If you don't want the turnkey solution (appliance and pro support), "use the sources Luke"
• about the price itself, please consider you'll have an appliance with support working out of the box (plus the web updater). And price is flat.
• complete features list is here: https://xen-orchestra.com/docs/features.html

Last thing, about using it inside or outside your infrastructure: because it's agent-less, you can use it everywhere. You can even imagine a small host with only XOA inside, the thing needed to "talk" to your others XenServer host is only a TCP connection to port 443. VPN connection to multiple datacenter is fairly possible (or other tunnels).

Next release (4.11) will be awesome!

• Incremental backup
• Cloud Init support
• SMB remote for backup (only NFS until now)
• Improved search bar
• XMPP alert plugin
• A lot of small but useful things
• And a far better support of older XS version (6.1 and 6.2)
• ~40 issues closed

Hope to deliver this Monday or Tuesday at worst

We validated our first provider: https://xen-orchestra.com/blog/xosan-on-10gbps-io/

Next? Probably a hardware provider

True, it's still over 9000

Thanks a lot for your support guys. Now, we start a new adventure

Thanks for the reminder, upgraded it on xen-orchestra.com/forum

Well, it's still blurry right now. But roughly it's being able to answer on our live chat and ticket system during office hours, on technical and basic workflow XOA questions (at first).

Currently, our support ratio is:

• 1/3 regarding XenServer issues
• 1/3 regarding real XO features missing or bugs
• 1/3 regarding problem between keyboard and chair

I'm not requiring any diploma or whatever, I'm OK for motivated people with understanding on how basically virtualization works (and classical/basic CS stuff, like what's an IP stack and standard Linux knowledge).

It would start with a simple mission: try to answer easy questions firsts, then assign us if needed. The goal is to get him/her to understand what was the issue, then next time he/she could handle it.

Hi @DustinB3403 !

4.11 is out since today: see https://xen-orchestra.com/blog/xen-orchestra-4-11/

SMB will come for 4.12 (mid Jan. max), due to validation time.

About XO best practice, everything is in the doc. About XO+XS best practice, it depends of your current infrastructure. In general, we spend some time to give our customers some leads, but it's more difficult to give large amount of time with the whole community (I would like to, but improving XO is a priority!). Sometimes I can help, at least I do my best to.

Briefly, in your case: we'll implement a "continuous replication" of VM directly to another host/pool (using delta+vm streaming, see the doc part about it). I think it will be suited for your need.

Yes: everything is in the sources (except non-direct XO feature, like the turnkey appliance with the updater).

@jospoortvliet nice to see we are (as Xen Orchestra editor) not the only one believing in a fully Open Source model. The value is not code, the value is in community and services around the software.

Nice job!

@DustinB3403 No worries But if you need an explanation on any XOA stuff, feel free to ping me. I'll come if I can

Hi lads!

Remind me to create my next startup doing only SaaS software and without any public code ^^ (just kidding, I love open source ).

@anonymous : I would like to eat at the end of the month, and to do that, I need some income. My team think the same (damn it! ). We are all working on XO every day. We are not Google, we are a small company working only on XO.

So we started to target companies and sell them a turnkney solution: XOA, which is the appliance running XO + an easy updater + support on a controlled environment.

But in the same time, because we love Open Source, all XO features are also released on GitHub. That's not the same audience: companies want something working out of the box and support. Individuals are different. And we even took the time to document the installation from the sources ^^ If you don't want to pay, play with the sources

About XOA, it runs on Debian, but it should work on any Linux, even MacOS or Windows!

You are welcome. Now it's more calm here, just take a preview (draft article, not published yet) about what's coming very soon: https://xen-orchestra.com/blog/p/82d8aaf1-84be-4a81-ab3a-10891bf7d1bb/