Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions
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@hobbit666 said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@DustinB3403 and I have a GitHub hosting of the script now. As it gets updated, it will update there.
Is this just for Ubuntu or will it work on CentOS?? (I prefer CentOS know my way round it better than Ubuntu)
Xen Orchestra was built on Debian, I built the installation guide on Ubuntu and have tested it on Debian as well.
If you want to build an installer for CentOS you're more then welcome to, this one was built for the Debian family.
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@hobbit666 said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@DustinB3403 and I have a GitHub hosting of the script now. As it gets updated, it will update there.
Is this just for Ubuntu or will it work on CentOS?? (I prefer CentOS know my way round it better than Ubuntu)
It's Ubuntu specific. Should be adaptable to CentOS, but they don't target CentOS so I would recommend Ubuntu as that is what the XO project tests against. I plan to be doing a 16.04 update very soon, as we need XO up and running in the NTG Lab once it reaches California.
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@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@hobbit666 said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@DustinB3403 and I have a GitHub hosting of the script now. As it gets updated, it will update there.
Is this just for Ubuntu or will it work on CentOS?? (I prefer CentOS know my way round it better than Ubuntu)
It's Ubuntu specific. Should be adaptable to CentOS, but they don't target CentOS so I would recommend Ubuntu as that is what the XO project tests against. I plan to be doing a 16.04 update very soon, as we need XO up and running in the NTG Lab once it reaches California.
That script seems to have worked fine with 16.04 I have XO up and running. Just need to play now see what it can do
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So I've gone through this thread but still a bit confused on Backups.
My plan is to run 7-8 VM's over two XenServers and Starwinds free VSAN. But I want to "backup" the VM's (well at least 3) to a NAS, is this done via the "snapshot" option?
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@hobbit666 said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
So I've gone through this thread but still a bit confused on Backups.
My plan is to run 7-8 VM's over two XenServers and Starwinds free VSAN. But I want to "backup" the VM's (well at least 3) to a NAS, is this done via the "snapshot" option?
Interesting, why are you using Starwind which requires a Windows VM, on top of the hypervisor, on each node.. that's a lot of Windows overhead and stuff, when XenServer does this natively itself with no need for VMs, licensing or anything. Would be faster and more stable doing it the native way unless you need Starwind features that XS doesn't provide.
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@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@hobbit666 said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
So I've gone through this thread but still a bit confused on Backups.
My plan is to run 7-8 VM's over two XenServers and Starwinds free VSAN. But I want to "backup" the VM's (well at least 3) to a NAS, is this done via the "snapshot" option?
Interesting, why are you using Starwind which requires a Windows VM, on top of the hypervisor, on each node.. that's a lot of Windows overhead and stuff, when XenServer does this natively itself with no need for VMs, licensing or anything. Would be faster and more stable doing it the native way unless you need Starwind features that XS doesn't provide.
Wasn't aware XenServer could do VSAN/Replication so will look into this thanks Scott.
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@hobbit666 said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
Wasn't aware XenServer could do VSAN/Replication so will look into this thanks Scott.
It's called DRBD and is fully automated if you use HA-Lizards' HA system for XenServer.
It's not VSAN, VSAN is conceptually a fallback for when things like DRBD do not exist. This is native RAIN. Full replication at the lowest level of the stack, and presented as local storage, not SAN, on each host. So there is never a network block storage protocol to get in the way like a VSAN has to use.
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The difference is that DRBD does not do scale out, you need Starwind for that. But for two node mirrored replication, it's unbeatable. It's the same technology we use for storage clustering on all Linux systems.
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@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
The difference is that DRBD does not do scale out, you need Starwind for that. But for two node mirrored replication, it's unbeatable. It's the same technology we use for storage clustering on all Linux systems.
Yeah I think we are never going to go over 2 hosts for the Citrix farm. So that will do.
Thx again Scott. -
DRBD is used as the base for HA in many NAS storage systems.
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@hobbit666 said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
The difference is that DRBD does not do scale out, you need Starwind for that. But for two node mirrored replication, it's unbeatable. It's the same technology we use for storage clustering on all Linux systems.
Yeah I think we are never going to go over 2 hosts for the Citrix farm. So that will do.
Thx again Scott.Just wondering, why do you need shared storage for a Citrix farm? Doesn't that kind of defeat the farm part?
Now that I think about my question more, I guess the shared storage is less about the farm, and more about your VM infrastructure.
But then I wonder, why are you limiting the VM infrastructure to potentially only two hosts?And is something like VSAN really needed to protect a Citrix farm? I thought Citrix farms were like ADDS servers, and typically we don't need VSAN to protect ADDS servers.
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@Dashrender said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@hobbit666 said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
The difference is that DRBD does not do scale out, you need Starwind for that. But for two node mirrored replication, it's unbeatable. It's the same technology we use for storage clustering on all Linux systems.
Yeah I think we are never going to go over 2 hosts for the Citrix farm. So that will do.
Thx again Scott.Just wondering, why do you need shared storage for a Citrix farm? Doesn't that kind of defeat the farm part?
I think that you are assuming that Citrix is a proxy word for XenApp, which it often is. But I suspect that it is not, here.
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@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@Dashrender said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@hobbit666 said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
The difference is that DRBD does not do scale out, you need Starwind for that. But for two node mirrored replication, it's unbeatable. It's the same technology we use for storage clustering on all Linux systems.
Yeah I think we are never going to go over 2 hosts for the Citrix farm. So that will do.
Thx again Scott.Just wondering, why do you need shared storage for a Citrix farm? Doesn't that kind of defeat the farm part?
I think that you are assuming that Citrix is a proxy word for XenApp, which it often is. But I suspect that it is not, here.
Oh? You think he's calling a XS infrastructure a Citrix farm?
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The two server are for Citrix XenDesktop. Each server will have 4 VM's giving 250 users Desktop Sessions (not VDI more RDS). The idea for VSAN/Replication between the two is if one host goes down the remaining host can spin the 4 VM's up so we always have 8 VMs running until the host is fixed.
Is was just going to use XenServer as the Hypervisor as it's FREE and does a lot as @Scott and others keep mentioning
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Oh, @Dashrender is right then, why use shared storage for a XenDesktop farm? Or, more importantly why HA?
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@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
Oh, @Dashrender is right then, why use shared storage for a XenDesktop farm? Or, more importantly why HA?
Exactly, why are you using HA? That's supposedly the whole purpose of a Citrix farm, the farm is the HA. Just like multiple ADDS servers are the HA, you don't protect it at the hardware level, you protect it by putting it one 2+ hosts.
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Because no desktop means no sales and one sale could be £100K so we need all 8 VM's running during office hours.
Yes 4 VM's could I guess run all 250 users for a day but if there is a FREE method of ensuring the VM's are there ready to run in their latest state i'll take it
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@hobbit666 said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
Because no desktop means no sales and one sale could be £100K so we need all 8 VM's running during office hours.
But we aren't suggesting that you not have a desktop. We are just saying that HA doesn't add to the ability to have one. It just makes the ones that you have slower.
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@hobbit666 said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
Yes 4 VM's could I guess run all 250 users for a day but if there is a FREE method of ensuring the VM's are there ready to run in their latest state i'll take it
There is, and the platform layer isn't it. You are making things less available, rather than more available. You are fighting the platform. Remember, platform level HA exists for the exclusive times when application HA is not available. XenDesktop already provides a better mechanism. It should be the only one that you are using.
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@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
@hobbit666 said in Xen Orchestra on Ubuntu 15.10 - Complete installation instructions:
Yes 4 VM's could I guess run all 250 users for a day but if there is a FREE method of ensuring the VM's are there ready to run in their latest state i'll take it
There is, and the platform layer isn't it. You are making things less available, rather than more available. You are fighting the platform. Remember, platform level HA exists for the exclusive times when application HA is not available. XenDesktop already provides a better mechanism. It should be the only one that you are using.
OK understood
