KVM or VMWare
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@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
I understand NDAs but you have to at least be able to give some more information than "major vendor".
What information would that be? LOL.
Literally anything. I can tell you that I am working with one of the big four right now. Can't say which one, but I can tell you that.
The big four vendors? This isn't a vendor THAT big. I'm not sure how to give away anything about this vendor without it being obvious quickly. Nothing like the size of the big four. But a vendor that has an IT arm.
Big four accounting.
OH, okay. I do work for someone in the Fortune 10. But this isn't them. So that doesn't help, lol.
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@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
Taking a clone is fine, but now you either have to maintain that template or it gets old and you have an ancient template sitting somewhere that is just as out of date as the initial OS install, or nearly (sure it'll have SOME updates.)
This is one place where KVM shines, but only libvirt/QEMU. You can update templates without spinning them up through libguestfs and the next time the template is cloned, the clone has all of the updates.
KVM has a lot of features like this, but it needs automated, is limited to libvirt (which cuts down the number of places KVM is deployed), and needs separate tools installed which are only cli based.
If KVM had APIs (not just REST APIs) like VMware, the whole landscape would change, but they don't. The APIs are hard to use and don't have all of the features you would expect. You can't even clone a system with virsh. You need a separate tool to do a lot of manual work behind the scenes.
What does the method of automation matter to making decisions on what to use? One uses an API, the other standard UNIX based tools, both accomplish the same thing.
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
I understand NDAs but you have to at least be able to give some more information than "major vendor".
What information would that be? LOL.
Literally anything. I can tell you that I am working with one of the big four right now. Can't say which one, but I can tell you that.
The big four vendors? This isn't a vendor THAT big. I'm not sure how to give away anything about this vendor without it being obvious quickly. Nothing like the size of the big four. But a vendor that has an IT arm.
Big four accounting.
OH, okay. I do work for someone in the Fortune 10. But this isn't them. So that doesn't help, lol.
If it was a vet clinic, and we service hundreds, I could say more specifically "a vet clinic with five doctors in the north east" and give nothing away. But more unique businesses, especially those that are known throughout the industry, you can't.
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@travisdh1 said in KVM or VMWare:
@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
Taking a clone is fine, but now you either have to maintain that template or it gets old and you have an ancient template sitting somewhere that is just as out of date as the initial OS install, or nearly (sure it'll have SOME updates.)
This is one place where KVM shines, but only libvirt/QEMU. You can update templates without spinning them up through libguestfs and the next time the template is cloned, the clone has all of the updates.
KVM has a lot of features like this, but it needs automated, is limited to libvirt (which cuts down the number of places KVM is deployed), and needs separate tools installed which are only cli based.
If KVM had APIs (not just REST APIs) like VMware, the whole landscape would change, but they don't. The APIs are hard to use and don't have all of the features you would expect. You can't even clone a system with virsh. You need a separate tool to do a lot of manual work behind the scenes.
What does the method of automation matter to making decisions on what to use? One uses an API, the other standard UNIX based tools, both accomplish the same thing.
Because one is easy to write integrations with, the other is not. The landscape would change because people and companies could easily create integrations and tools.
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@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
The landscape would change because people and companies could easily create integrations and tools.
did you mean... If?
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
The landscape would change because people and companies could easily create integrations and tools.
did you mean... If?
Yeah I said that earlier here:
If KVM had APIs (not just REST APIs) like VMware, the whole landscape would change, but they don't.
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@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
The landscape would change because people and companies could easily create integrations and tools.
did you mean... If?
Yeah I said that earlier here:
If KVM had APIs (not just REST APIs) like VMware, the whole landscape would change, but they don't.
I thought so, but you typed "because" and it didn't quite make sense. Yes, I agree, cool APIs that make loads of automation easily consumable by third party applications would be a great upgrade and make it even more broadly applicable.
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
@stacksofplates said in KVM or VMWare:
The landscape would change because people and companies could easily create integrations and tools.
did you mean... If?
Yeah I said that earlier here:
If KVM had APIs (not just REST APIs) like VMware, the whole landscape would change, but they don't.
I thought so, but you typed "because" and it didn't quite make sense. Yes, I agree, cool APIs that make loads of automation easily consumable by third party applications would be a great upgrade and make it even more broadly applicable.
IF they had that, I would change my opinion about the easier tool to use. Sure cloud providers can write the tooling for KVM (libvirt or not) but VMware makes things much more consumable.
For instance, you want to give someone their own storage space and access to only their VMs. Have fun with bare KVM. You need to use polkit and write custom rules around Unix users who can access those VMs. But that only manages the guest domain. Not the networking or actual storage. In VMware, it's just creating a folder and giving permissions to a user in that folder with some resource scoping.
Bare KVM is fine if you have one person or a couple people with the same privileges managing systems. Outside of that it gets really hard really fast.
Edit: forgot the VMware side.
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Let's talk about why Microsoft are not releasing Hyper-V Server no more. I should imagine they were eventually going to kill it, but they have done it quite quickly then imagined.
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@stuartjordan said in KVM or VMWare:
Let's talk about why Microsoft are not releasing Hyper-V Server no more. I should imagine they were eventually going to kill it, but they have done it quite quickly then imagined.
Because they want you to use Azure Stack HCI instead.
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@obsolesce I should of imagined it had something to do with Azure.
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@stuartjordan said in KVM or VMWare:
@obsolesce I should of imagined it had something to do with Azure.
Probably has a little something to do with the $10 per core/month fee as well.
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@obsolesce said in KVM or VMWare:
@stuartjordan said in KVM or VMWare:
Let's talk about why Microsoft are not releasing Hyper-V Server no more. I should imagine they were eventually going to kill it, but they have done it quite quickly then imagined.
Because they want you to use Azure Stack HCI instead.
Not instead, in addition to. Azure Stack HCI is built on Hyper-V and a number of other technologies. ASHCI is MS doubling down on Hyper-V, not abandoning it.
But this is like saying that they want you to buy Datacenter instead of a desktop version of Windows. Both are Windows, one is really expensive, one is really cheap. Sure they "want" you to pay for the expensive one. But that doesn't imply that they would make the crazy move of not still promoting and providing the free one.
Virtualization isn't a game where you can risk not having a free version. VMware owns the entire space of "paid only" and their options are super cheap. Azure Stack HCI has no cheap option whatsoever. This is a premium product. Maybe worth it, maybe not, but not something cheap. Loads of companies could never consider it because it is just too costly for much of the SMB. With servers typically being 16+ cores, that makes ASHCI $160/mo just for the integration of components. That adds up super fast for an SMB, so it's not for everyone.
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
Not instead, in addition to.
If Hyper-V Server as a single product is going away, then it can't be "in addition to". He said Hyper-V Server, not Hyper-V.
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
ASHCI is MS doubling down on Hyper-V, not abandoning it.
Right, not what I was referring to. He said, "Hyper-V Server". We all know that Hyper-V is not going away.
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@obsolesce said in KVM or VMWare:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
Not instead, in addition to.
If Hyper-V Server as a single product is going away, then it can't be "in addition to". He said Hyper-V Server, not Hyper-V.
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
ASHCI is MS doubling down on Hyper-V, not abandoning it.
Right, not what I was referring to. He said, "Hyper-V Server". We all know that Hyper-V is not going away.
So basically, correct me if I am wrong, one has to pay to use Hyper-V going forward in the future (After Hyper-V Server 2019 is EOL)?
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@pmoncho said in KVM or VMWare:
@obsolesce said in KVM or VMWare:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
Not instead, in addition to.
If Hyper-V Server as a single product is going away, then it can't be "in addition to". He said Hyper-V Server, not Hyper-V.
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
ASHCI is MS doubling down on Hyper-V, not abandoning it.
Right, not what I was referring to. He said, "Hyper-V Server". We all know that Hyper-V is not going away.
So basically, correct me if I am wrong, one has to pay to use Hyper-V going forward in the future (After Hyper-V Server 2019 is EOL)?
Depends on the use case, but yes. I haven't looked much into it because I don't use "Hyper-V" anymore outside of my Windows Desktop and Laptop.
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@obsolesce said in KVM or VMWare:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
Not instead, in addition to.
If Hyper-V Server as a single product is going away, then it can't be "in addition to". He said Hyper-V Server, not Hyper-V.
@scottalanmiller said in KVM or VMWare:
ASHCI is MS doubling down on Hyper-V, not abandoning it.
Right, not what I was referring to. He said, "Hyper-V Server". We all know that Hyper-V is not going away.
All of this @scottalanmiller. To my knowledge, no one in this thread said Hyper-V was going away.
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@jaredbusch XCP-ng and XenOrchestra are both supported very well. Just today, someone using the latest version of VirtualBox had problems with importing a VirtualBox.OVA into XCP-ng using XenOrchestra. A dev looked at the problem and posted patches to github very same day. Unlike other vendors, you are dealing directly with developers as opposed to a call center "I do not want to be here. I just want to close this ticket" hourly employee.
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XCP-ng and XE cli and XenOrchestra and XCPngCenter use the well known XEN API known as "XAPI".
Start a task using the XE command line and it shows up in the other task lists such as that in XenOrchestra.
Start a vm move from XCPNGcenter and it shows up under
xe task-list.Start a vm copy command from XenOrchestra and it will show up under
xe task-list.We use one set of tools to manage both old Citrix 6.5 hosts and the latest XCP-ng hosts.
Not sure how that compares to ProxMox/KVM. Do not know on the status of a real KVM API, but as a long time bash user, I would consider bash an API.
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@rjt said in KVM or VMWare:
XCP-ng and XE cli and XenOrchestra and XCPngCenter use the well known XEN API known as "XAPI".
Start a task using the XE command line and it shows up in the other task lists such as that in XenOrchestra.
Start a vm move from XCPNGcenter and it shows up under
xe task-list.Start a vm copy command from XenOrchestra and it will show up under
xe task-list.We use one set of tools to manage both old Citrix 6.5 hosts and the latest XCP-ng hosts.
Not sure how that compares to ProxMox/KVM. Do not know on the status of a real KVM API, but as a long time bash user, I would consider bash an API.
Bash is not an API, it's a shell. You don't really interact with the KVM APIs directly, it's libvirt which you usually interact with because KVM is very low level. Libvirt has real APIs but like I mentioned above, they don't do a lot of what you would want. Commands like
xe vm-listare similar to things likevirsh list --alland are done through libvirt. KVM can be leveraged without libvirt/qemu (see things like gvisor and firecracker), however libvirt is normally what you get out of the box.Cloning is a good immediate example. Cloning is done through a tool like
virt-clonewhich is a subset of tooling from virt-manager (source here https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/blob/master/virtinst/virtclone.py) . So if you were to try to create a REST API to interact with libvirt to clone a system you'd essentially need something like a CGI script to kick off the clone process. It's very kludgy. I did a lot of this automation through Ansible, but it took a lot of work and was somewhat limited.
