Open Source Hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?
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@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
@scottalanmiller said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
And in the modern world, the way that backups need to work in many cases is dramatically different than they used to. The reality is is that there are old fashioned backups (agent) and this new type (agentless) and then REALLY modern (DevOps) and it's only this one middle ground that is popular in the SMB right now that Xen lacks.
That's also interesting... so your point is:
- do not backup infrastructure: code it.
- backup workloads with any backup tool.
Well, you dont' back up infrastructure if you code it or not. Agentless / hypervisor backup tools don't back up the infrastructure anyway, so that is a moot point. But yes, when possible, code it, definitely.
I know that most SMBs won't but going to those other tools won't solve that gap. In reality, for a small SMB, just recreate manually.
But yes, workloads with any tool, for sure.
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@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
@scottalanmiller said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
@scottalanmiller said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
No matter how much you fear an open source slow down, it's better than the alternative.
That's a point. And it fits my experience as well! sold!
ok, KVM is more reassuring:
27 contributors come from Red Hat
198 from other sources...just looking now at how old non redhatters are...
How about Xen, instead of XAPI. XAPI is totally unimportant. Xen commits is where it will be interesting.
look at my previous post. XAPI is now relevent for basic maintainance. anyway I will crunch numbers for Xen too
Only relevant in that it's one of several options. And neither the most basic, nor the most advanced.
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@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
Only limit to this is: how much DevOps is penetrated today in SMB?
How much "is" doesn't matter. When talking about what to do for planning, whether or not other shops do it is not a rational factor. SMB has had DevOps for a long time, that's where it had its resurgence. The problem is most SMBs have things in place and just leave them there. So "better ways to do things" don't sneak in very often. But that doesn't mean that it isn't sensible or what should be done.
But I'm not saying it is, only that that is not a good way to think about it.
Example: Most SMBs don't take backups. Would we use that as a reason to consider backups something to be avoided?
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@scottalanmiller said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
do not backup infrastructure: code it.
sorry bad wording. Infrastructure: the set of VM you run your applications on and you need to reconfigure if you loose them because of weak backups.
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@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
So then: maybe open source hypervisors WILL be make the difference WHEN DevOps will be ubiquitous in SMB?
No, open source matters to every business, of every size, always. Nothing we've discussed plays a role in that. Open source always matters. All of the discussion around hypervisors is really about understanding why those particular products have advantages and good momentum. None of it reflects on source licensing's benefits which are universal and guaranteed.
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@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
@scottalanmiller said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
do not backup infrastructure: code it.
sorry bad wording. Infrastructure: the set of VM you run your applications on and you need to reconfigure if you loose them because of weak backups.
Agent backups are not weak, often they are more robust. They carry many advantages which is why they are the primary style used in cloud computing. There is no need for DevOps here, that's another assumption. I offered it as a third option that doesn't require the strong reliance on robust backups at all, but I was clear that traditional robust backups were still available as they always were.
You only stop taking backups when you move to infrastructure as code, but that is a separate thing than agent vs agentless backups.
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@scottalanmiller said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
KVM/libvirt is basically a Red Hat show. If Red Hat will drop KVM there will really be someone which will step up and will continue the development?
It's not owned by or controlled by RH. RH is not likely to drop it, less likely that MS dropping Hyper-V. Knowing that someone else will pick it up and that all they will do is lose control is one of the many benefits of open source to us, the consumers. It keeps RH from dropping things in a way that we don't have protection with for closed source.
KVM is part of Linux, not RH. It's heavily contributed to by Canonical and Suse but, more importantly, IBM. Even if RH walked away today, KVM is not in the slightest danger. If MS did that to Hyper-V, it would be over - period.
So yes, the open source nature here provides us the most extreme level of benefits and protection that exist in the industry.
In world where every good opensource project gets forked at least 2 times... ahm ahm Keepass and KeePassX
and KeePassXC. Firefox and its other clones. Chromium based browsers.Even if the worst scenario happened and all abandoned the KVM train, we would have XKVM and KVM+ and KVMnot in mere days.
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ok put this simply. I go open source because it has more benefits then freeware. So I pick projects which do not depend on single corporate devel groups. Assume XAPI is not this. at least for the sake of stats I've extracted from git.
you go on premise with KVM on CentOS OR with Xen on opensuse leap (I would not go on ubuntu or debian - that's another topic).
Then I have to administer it. all open source because it pays more than freeware. I will use virt-manager with libvirt. This is ok with KVM even live migration is there. but Xen?
it starts appearing a bit risky IMHO probably XenCenter is the solution here. ok we hit another problem with XenCenter. just skip it.What about open source backup for VMs? To my knowledge you can eihter buy super big NASes for a longer retention policy of the OSes OR you backup the app (as I do in my web apps) and you simply try to make the OS backup irrelevant, AKA DevOps style a-la salt/ansible.
Otherwise you need baremetal-like restore of the OS. Which open source project does this?
Of course a proper mix of LVM snapshots, mount, rsnapshot (rsync) can do the work, but home made backup solution is probably NOT the way I would go in SMB (I did it with KVM just at LVM level, no dedup with rsnapshot - and retention was poor).
just link me to a proper quick to setup solution and honestly I will be able to sold benefits of opensource over freeware.
I miss this now. Then I will be able to sold openness even at hypervisor level not only application/OS level! -
@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
ok put this simply. I go open source because it has more benefits then freeware. So I pick projects which do not depend on single corporate devel groups. Assume XAPI is not this. at least for the sake of stats I've extracted from git.
you go on premise with KVM on CentOS OR with Xen on opensuse leap (I would not go on ubuntu or debian - that's another topic).
Then I have to administer it. all open source because it pays more than freeware.
No, you go open source because it has more advantages than any other license type. Not compared to freeware, compared to non-opensource.
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@msff-amman-Itofficer said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
@scottalanmiller said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
KVM/libvirt is basically a Red Hat show. If Red Hat will drop KVM there will really be someone which will step up and will continue the development?
It's not owned by or controlled by RH. RH is not likely to drop it, less likely that MS dropping Hyper-V. Knowing that someone else will pick it up and that all they will do is lose control is one of the many benefits of open source to us, the consumers. It keeps RH from dropping things in a way that we don't have protection with for closed source.
KVM is part of Linux, not RH. It's heavily contributed to by Canonical and Suse but, more importantly, IBM. Even if RH walked away today, KVM is not in the slightest danger. If MS did that to Hyper-V, it would be over - period.
So yes, the open source nature here provides us the most extreme level of benefits and protection that exist in the industry.
In world where every good opensource project gets forked at least 2 times... ahm ahm Keepass and KeePassX
and KeePassXC. Firefox and its other clones. Chromium based browsers.Even if the worst scenario happened and all abandoned the KVM train, we would have XKVM and KVM+ and KVMnot in mere days.
Exactly, short of Linux itelf, (which KVM is actually) there are likely no other projects more protected in the last decade or so.
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@scottalanmiller said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
No, you go open source because it has more advantages than any other license type. Not compared to freeware, compared to non-opensource.
I know, but to the SMB free of charge is quite a reason! so I started comparing to freeware. SMB here are not interested in Red Hat/SLES support. They go CentOS.
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@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
So I pick projects which do not depend on single corporate devel groups.
This is very bad logic, you can't think like this. You are missing the value of open source and how it makes this a non-issue, completely eliminates it from consideration.
This is closed source thinking. Only in closed source is this a factor.
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@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
@scottalanmiller said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
No, you go open source because it has more advantages than any other license type. Not compared to freeware, compared to non-opensource.
I know, but to the SMB free of charge is quite a reason! so I started comparing to freeware. SMB here are not interested in Red Hat/SLES support. They go CentOS.
But "bad thinking" is never good logic to interject. We know that SMBs make bad decisions, but we should never back bad recommendations based off of assumed bad logic. It's not a reasonable decision making process.
And lots of SMBs demand support, it's not that uncommon.
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@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
it starts appearing a bit risky IMHO probably XenCenter is the solution here. ok we hit another problem with XenCenter. just skip it.
XC is not a serious product and has not been for years. It has the XAPI dependency of XO without the benefits. Using XS implies the intent to use XO, XS is worthless without it.
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@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
What about open source backup for VMs? To my knowledge you can eihter buy super big NASes for a longer retention policy of the OSes OR you backup the app (as I do in my web apps) and you simply try to make the OS backup irrelevant, AKA DevOps style a-la salt/ansible.
There isn't, backup is one area that good backups don't exist. There ARE tools, like URBackup and Amanda, but there is no reason not to use Veeam's free agents if you are going to consider those. Backup is really just something that you pay for either with money or through time scripting. Why no open source competition here, I do not know, but it's a market without a product. It is what it is.
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@scottalanmiller said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
So I pick projects which do not depend on single corporate devel groups.
This is very bad logic, you can't think like this. You are missing the value of open source and how it makes this a non-issue, completely eliminates it from consideration.
This is closed source thinking. Only in closed source is this a factor.
Nope. opensource is not magic, you need huge resources and commitment to fork a huge project and keep it going. if all the efforts have been done in-corporate there is a high risk.
It is not that I feel this for any single project. Open office had serious issues, and a community engaged to solve them. they forked it.
No one is minding about the XAPI layer of Xen. so if you want to sell Xen - just to say- you need to offer alternatives where a community minds about it! or this to me is closed source like.
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@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
just link me to a proper quick to setup solution and honestly I will be able to sold benefits of opensource over freeware.
I miss this now. Then I will be able to sold openness even at hypervisor level not only application/OS level!There is no single option, there are loads of options. Scale HC3, XenServer with XO, XenServer with HA-Lizard, KVM all command line, KVM OS, Xen OS... the list will go on and on. Most of the selection is based on what factors matter to you, there are so many ways to do it.
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@scottalanmiller said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
just link me to a proper quick to setup solution and honestly I will be able to sold benefits of opensource over freeware.
I miss this now. Then I will be able to sold openness even at hypervisor level not only application/OS level!There is no single option, there are loads of options. Scale HC3, XenServer with XO, XenServer with HA-Lizard, KVM all command line, KVM OS, Xen OS... the list will go on and on. Most of the selection is based on what factors matter to you, there are so many ways to do it.
fair.
let's say IT is a one-man-show with limited time and money. If you go hyper-v + veeam you pay really little. tolerable. almost neglactable wrt HW costs. And a simple NAS would (almost) do the job as backup storage.
but open source doesn't depend on these companies and their shares so... better option in the long term. how to achive on par readyness of systems with fully opensource projects without spending thousand of euro/dollars in labor or require more knowledge the average IT has in SMB?
KVM has backup limits in this scenario. Xen usually is operated via XO/XAPI whcih I do not feel so different form closed solutions due to commit hisroty in XAPI.
DevOps or bare metal restore with proper incremental/dedup would benefit here. But I'm not aware of it in the open. Otherwise a good retention requires tons of storage and tons of time for backups.
backgroud hystory:
Our "previous" system, the one we are going to phase out this winter, has been operated by an external supplier which used Xen + XO for this purpose -> quick readiness (less costs for the customer). -
@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
how to achive on par readyness of systems with fully opensource projects ....
I think that this is a mistake. It's not that you make a commitment to nothing but open source. It's only that when two otherwise equal options are available at a technical level, that open source licensing presents a strong benefit. Going out to choose software solely because it is open does not make sense, only treating open as an always beneficial factor.
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@matteo-nunziati said in open source hypervisors: do we really have them? do we really need them?:
Xen usually is operated via XO/XAPI whcih I do not feel so different form closed solutions due to commit hisroty in XAPI.
But they are, in every way. Every way. Commit history has nothing to do with it at all. Do you think that closed software comes from a single vendor? Open doesn't imply more than one. Closed doesn't imply only one. The number of committing entities is in no way related to our discussion, or to openness.
