What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations
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@bnrstnr said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
Not to totally derail the thread, but the backups and stuff is what confuses me about XO, do you have to pay the $70/month to get automated backups and access to the other important features?
All open source and free.
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@bnrstnr said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
@DustinB3403 said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
If you're not using XO for the backup capabilities, or any of the additional functionality, you're missing out on what it really shines at.
I'm not using it at all currently. I use Unitrends now for backups, and I don't think it's ideal, but it does work.
Not to totally derail the thread, but the backups and stuff is what confuses me about XO, do you have to pay the $70/month to get automated backups and access to the other important features?
Nope. And with the simple install found here on ML it's a piece of cake to set up.
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I prefer KVM/QEMU. It's worthwhile to invest time in learning all of the tools to manage everything from the CLI before trying to rely on any of the GUI based tools like virt-manager/virt-viewer.
I only interface with KVM on my home test environment now, but these are the tools I most frequently use. And aside from virsh, most of them are rarely used outside of a script.
- virsh
- qemu-img
- virt-clone
- virt-sysprep
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@bnrstnr said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
@DustinB3403 said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
If you're not using XO for the backup capabilities, or any of the additional functionality, you're missing out on what it really shines at.
I'm not using it at all currently. I use Unitrends now for backups, and I don't think it's ideal, but it does work.
Not to totally derail the thread, but the backups and stuff is what confuses me about XO, do you have to pay the $70/month to get automated backups and access to the other important features?
If you use the appliance (the one you download from xenorchestra.com) then yes you have to pay for those features.
If you use the community installed version (Install instructions here) then everything is completely free and open source.
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@RamblingBiped said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
I prefer KVM/QEMU. It's worthwhile to invest time in learning all of the tools to manage everything from the CLI before trying to rely on any of the GUI based tools like virt-manager/virt-viewer.
- virsh
- qemu-img
- virt-clone
- virt-sysprep
I'm starting to learn it and applied the same train of thought to it
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@bnrstnr said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
@hobbit666 said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
But I found HyperV there was a lot of messing to get a workstation to talk (especially if your on a different network/domain)
This might of gotten easier since the last time I tried HyperV
but it put me off.This! When I first switched to virtualization it was Hyper-V, and getting it to talk to my workstation was so unnecessarily difficult, I wanted so badly to just join it to the domain. 5Nine is awesome and totally remedied the awkward communication/credential problems. I ultimately bailed on Hyper-V and switched to XS around the same time I switched to Windows 10. We had just gotten a new virtual host and I wanted to try something new, and not paying the $350 a year for the 5nine license was a bonus.
I can't for the life of me get into XO though, XenCenter just works and does everything that I need it to do. Maybe I like it because I was used to 5Nine? I don't know. It seems to be a pain to log into the web interface and fumble around trying to find the stuff I need when I'm already used to XenCenter. I haven't given it a true chance though.
For what it's worth, I've had zero issues with XS since switching. For me, it's been a far better experience than Hyper-V was.
Believe it or not, managing Hyper-V via PowerShell is more straight forward than setting up the right permissions and settings in order to use Hyper-V Manager.
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Plus knowing how to manage your hypervisor without the need of a GUI will help a lot. Especially when you are unable to use GUI.
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@black3dynamite said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
Plus knowing how to manage your hypervisor without the need of a GUI will help a lot. Especially when you are unable to use GUI.
Yup, it's easier to keep a remote PowerShell open anyways. Makes things so much faster and easier, believe it or not.
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@scottalanmiller I've recently looked at the SLES installer and it seems it is able to support Xen. Not sure about opensuse.
My idea was: why use XS if I can install it on a minimal suse leap? I've never used xen so I do not know if XO is able to deal with Xen over suse.
This would be a nice way to go out of the really strict/limited apporach of XS. And anyway it would be way more close to what one does with centos minimal install + libvirt/kvm.Currently I'm using hyper-v + altaro. I've just setup a replica server using the build-in replica service and I'm going to test it (and write a little bit about the process). Altaro is great but hyper-v is really MS stuff:
- dynamic memory has frozed ALL of the VMs on my host (even win ones), leading me to go the static memory way.
- everytime I read about issues with a potential update a million of guys jump out of the blue with the wierds issues, scarrying me. I always pray when an update is to be installed.
- performance is not top notch (minor issue here)
- now and then the VM manager freezes...
- and honestly poweshell is way worst than unix-like apps + bash/sh
All in all it seems the classic lack of QA and NIH syndrome from MS. But for sure it does the job and the SW ecosystem is wide.
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@matteo-nunziati said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
@scottalanmiller I've recently looked at the SLES installer and it seems it is able to support Xen. Not sure about opensuse.
openSuse Leap has everything like SLES does. It's essentially a straight copy. Suse and openSuse have kept on supporting Xen since the very beginning. They never moved away from it.
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@matteo-nunziati said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
I've never used xen so I do not know if XO is able to deal with Xen over suse.
It's not Suse that's a factor. It's that XS has XAPI which is the extra API for management. To use XO, you need XAPI. So if you use Xen in any non-XS configuration, you have to add XAPI support yourself to get those kinds of things.
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You might want to test openSuse Tumbleweed, too, for the very latest features.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
@matteo-nunziati said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
I've never used xen so I do not know if XO is able to deal with Xen over suse.
It's not Suse that's a factor. It's that XS has XAPI which is the extra API for management. To use XO, you need XAPI. So if you use Xen in any non-XS configuration, you have to add XAPI support yourself to get those kinds of things.
you mean build them from source?
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@matteo-nunziati said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
@scottalanmiller said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
@matteo-nunziati said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
I've never used xen so I do not know if XO is able to deal with Xen over suse.
It's not Suse that's a factor. It's that XS has XAPI which is the extra API for management. To use XO, you need XAPI. So if you use Xen in any non-XS configuration, you have to add XAPI support yourself to get those kinds of things.
you mean build them from source?
I mean get them. RPM, Source, binary... whatever it takes. You need them from somewhere, though.
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I've not added XAPI support onto openSuse, so have no idea what the availability of that project might be.
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@matteo-nunziati said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
@scottalanmiller I've recently looked at the SLES installer and it seems it is able to support Xen. Not sure about opensuse.
My idea was: why use XS if I can install it on a minimal suse leap? I've never used xen so I do not know if XO is able to deal with Xen over suse.
This would be a nice way to go out of the really strict/limited apporach of XS. And anyway it would be way more close to what one does with centos minimal install + libvirt/kvm.Currently I'm using hyper-v + altaro. I've just setup a replica server using the build-in replica service and I'm going to test it (and write a little bit about the process). Altaro is great but hyper-v is really MS stuff:
- dynamic memory has frozed ALL of the VMs on my host (even win ones), leading me to go the static memory way.
- everytime I read about issues with a potential update a million of guys jump out of the blue with the wierds issues, scarrying me. I always pray when an update is to be installed.
- performance is not top notch (minor issue here)
- now and then the VM manager freezes...
- and honestly poweshell is way worst than unix-like apps + bash/sh
All in all it seems the classic lack of QA and NIH syndrome from MS. But for sure it does the job and the SW ecosystem is wide.
Updates pretty minor when using Hyper-V Server instead.
Dynamic Memory works great as longs the hyperv-daemons for Linux is installed and also configure memory ballooning.
I have experienced Manager freezing because of antivirus.
PowerShell does take awhile to get use. I've been forcing myself to use PowerShell exclusively. I understood it more than I did with vbscript.
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@matteo-nunziati said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
@scottalanmiller I've recently looked at the SLES installer and it seems it is able to support Xen. Not sure about opensuse.
My idea was: why use XS if I can install it on a minimal suse leap? I've never used xen so I do not know if XO is able to deal with Xen over suse.
This would be a nice way to go out of the really strict/limited apporach of XS. And anyway it would be way more close to what one does with centos minimal install + libvirt/kvm.Currently I'm using hyper-v + altaro. I've just setup a replica server using the build-in replica service and I'm going to test it (and write a little bit about the process). Altaro is great but hyper-v is really MS stuff:
- dynamic memory has frozed ALL of the VMs on my host (even win ones), leading me to go the static memory way.
- everytime I read about issues with a potential update a million of guys jump out of the blue with the wierds issues, scarrying me. I always pray when an update is to be installed.
- performance is not top notch (minor issue here)
- now and then the VM manager freezes...
- and honestly poweshell is way worst than unix-like apps + bash/sh
All in all it seems the classic lack of QA and NIH syndrome from MS. But for sure it does the job and the SW ecosystem is wide.
Using XAPI would be cumbersome as @scottalanmiller said, but you can use the very mature and IMHO better libvirt framework, like KVM do! The support for Xen is very good, you should also be able to do almost anything virt-manager support with KVM. The XL toolstack for Xen is mature and is the de facto standard outside of XS.
Ma, dato il tipo di configurazione che stai cercando di metter su, ti consiglio di usare Fedora con KVM più che provare adattamenti: la sicurezza e le features di KVM (nonché le performance) sono ormai pari e volte superiori a Xen.
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@black3dynamite said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
Updates pretty minor when using Hyper-V Server instead.
Yes, but searching for the KB number always raises more issues than on any other platform! Once they had to ask Chuck Norris to stop KBs to create chaos!
Dynamic Memory works great as longs the hyperv-daemons for Linux is installed and also configure memory ballooning.
In my experience even win server 2012R2 VMs freezed. I think this is an issue with the HW/SW combination. Don't know. But it appens. And on a certified configuration.
I have experienced Manager freezing because of antivirus.
Yes, you are right , but hey they say I need an AV on windows
PowerShell does take awhile to get use. I've been forcing myself to use PowerShell exclusively. I understood it more than I did with vbscript.
I've coded in my life (for a few weeks up to a lot of years) in c, c++, python, java, matlab, js and even in bash or VBA! I've debugged a bit of VB and c#. It's almost 20 years since my first attempt with a programming language. No problem with new languages. But honestly my issue with Powershell is exactly this: it seems to me more of a scripting language than a real shell.
If you have used linux utils + shell you can understand what I mean: while PS is powerful, it is way more verbose and programmish than the linux counterpart.
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@Francesco-Provino said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
Using XAPI would be cumbersome as @scottalanmiller said, but you can use the very mature and IMHO better libvirt framework, like KVM do! The support for Xen is very good, you should also be able to do almost anything virt-manager support with KVM. The XL toolstack for Xen is mature and is the de facto standard outside of XS.
Ma, dato il tipo di configurazione che stai cercando di metter su, ti consiglio di usare Fedora con KVM più che provare adattamenti: la sicurezza e le features di KVM (nonché le performance) sono ormai pari e volte superiori a Xen.Actually I've migrated my KVM host to Hyper-V just for non tech reasons (I was happy with KVM). The idea about suse + xen came in mind considering the issues with XS. On the other hand XO features (like incremental backups) seem really interesting.
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@matteo-nunziati said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
@Francesco-Provino said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:
Using XAPI would be cumbersome as @scottalanmiller said, but you can use the very mature and IMHO better libvirt framework, like KVM do! The support for Xen is very good, you should also be able to do almost anything virt-manager support with KVM. The XL toolstack for Xen is mature and is the de facto standard outside of XS.
Ma, dato il tipo di configurazione che stai cercando di metter su, ti consiglio di usare Fedora con KVM più che provare adattamenti: la sicurezza e le features di KVM (nonché le performance) sono ormai pari e volte superiori a Xen.Actually I've migrated my KVM host to Hyper-V just for non tech reasons (I was happy with KVM). The idea about suse + xen came in mind considering the issues with XS. On the other hand XO features (like incremental backups) seem really interesting.
That's one of the biggest problems with Xen. Some features are from Xen itself and so you want the latest and greatest. Others come from XAPI and XO so you want to go that route. Argh.
