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%.
The short term goal is to have:
Mid-term goal:
Long-term goal:
@scottalanmiller To be right too early can be a mistake too 
You just can't invest resources without good reasons.
@scottalanmiller said in XCP-ng project:
I just want to toot my own horn and say that I first suggested this or something like it fourteen months ago to @olivier .... it just took Citrix' decline for another year to invoke some action
Yeah, but without enough incentive to do so, XenServer was more appealing. Now they removed some features, they raised the common interested to do so. And therefore people are more eager to try it now.
@scottalanmiller Yes, good idea. This would be doable to add ZFS support for local SR. I can do it in a week if I have a week free 
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!
@scottalanmiller I think we used this to read how VM.create was used, but a more efficient way was to create a "XAPI proxy" to intercept all calls between XenCenter and XenServer, with all parameters (because you know, when you don't have a documentation…)
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
That's definitely what would be nice. Base CentOS 7 install, add a repo and away you go.
That's the goal, yes. Is it doable? Can't tell for now! (because… I don't know!)
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@olivier XenCenter got made open source? It wasn't for a VERY long time.
https://github.com/xenserver/xenadmin
To be fair, I don't know in what way it could be useful, but anyway it is!
@dustinb3403 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@black3dynamite said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@dustinb3403 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@travisdh1 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@wirestyle22 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
Did we just universally decide that XenServer sucks now? A year ago we were thrilled with it and now it's not even brought up anymore when we talk about type-1 hypervisors.
Yep. They took away a bunch of functionality in the free version with the last release. They made it not worth considering anymore compared to KVM or Hyper-V :pouting_face:
On a separate note @olivier and team are looking to create a fork of XenServer (XAPI toolstack) from the existing solution to be able to continue it.
The answer will be to use XO instead but is XenCenter open source or still a Citrix property?
Also are we expecting XO to be included when creating a fork of XenServer?
XenCenter is closed source and included free of charge (always has been). It, plus support for XenServer was what Citrix charged for.
XO and any fork of XenServer are ideally going to go along for a ride hand in hand.
Meaning XO would replace XenCenter, while being fully open source and free.
Not exactly. XenCenter is also open source but only a tool (heavy Windows client) to manage your VMs and that's it.
XenServer is almost 100% Open Source (except few things, like the license daemon, which is 100% legit!)
The problem is to be able to build XenServer from the sources, because there is no documentation to do so (and believe me, it's far more complicated than building XO!). But I started this: https://github.com/xcp-ng
The goal (ideally), we be to use your CentOS, add an extra repo, yum install xcp-ng and you have something almost 100% like XenServer (ie fully XO compatible) but not Citrix dependent and unlocking all possible features. Could we achieve this? I don't know. We'll try.
edit: oh and by the way, we'll push the Gluster driver soon (with a doc!), so for people who want to connect an existing Gluster storage as a XenServer storage repository, this would be pretty easy 
Thanks for the answers guys. That makes sense now. Mangolassi >>>>>>>> Spicework.
I think they assumed the word "community" means "sheeps that you can drive toward a sales funnel" 
I understand the business model somehow, but it's really distorted by those mods 
I won't come back there, obviously.
I just wanted to comment a thread regarding XenServer 7.3 and some removed features, telling we are trying to gather people around the idea to build it from the sources (see https://xen-orchestra.com/forum/topic/562/xenserver-7-3-and-now-what-s-next )
My first post was removed because I can't post for free « as a vendor » (WAT? just talking about XenServer). But I re-posted without any links, just telling there is some initiative to do so.
… And my post was removed, because I was telling in this last post that "well my previous post was removed".
And the moderator told be, basically:
As an XO Sales Engineer, unfortunately you will not be able to engage with SpiceHeads in the community, as we are only free for those working IT positions at their company.
Seriously? "XO Sales Engineer", LOL. Did you experience that kind of issues with them? Is it new?
Again, thanks for posting this, it helps me to remember I need to update my Zimbra from time to time (oh and thanks for the direct link too)
@dashrender said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
@bigbear said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
Assuming they moved to a support only model for revenue, would they have to charge an arm and a leg like XO to cover their bases, basically driving the support cost out of most SMB anyway?
LOL
@scottalanmiller said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
@dashrender said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
@bigbear said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
When you consider the exposure these guys are missing vs the small amount of revenue they get from their baseline PBX products... how many times a week do you tell someone to use FreePBX?
The question is how small is it? Do we really know?
Assuming they moved to a support only model for revenue, would they have to charge an arm and a leg like XO to cover their bases, basically driving the support cost out of most SMB anyway?
XO doesn't have to, their investors make them. Not the same thing.
Not true. It was more a seed raising.
edit: hahahahahahaha. I think I just understand, XO meant not "Xen Orchestra" Sorry for the confusion it didn't really made sense Sorry 
@scottalanmiller said in What is KVM Best Management Tools in 2017?:
@olivier said in What is KVM Best Management Tools in 2017?:
@scottalanmiller We infected Cambridge Uni with my French fellows
It's a good language, but when you build something for the community, you have to make some choices. That was never a priority for Citrix (to be community thing/popular)
Oh it's good, but... there is no good reason for open source stuff, especially really important stuff that needs community support, to be written in it.
I totally agree. But community was never a thing for Citrix.
@fateknollogee No matter the hypervisor, building a toolstack won't get you any money. So nobody will do it for doing it, period.
edit: no powerful toolstack, no "vCenter" like.
@scottalanmiller We infected Cambridge Uni with my French fellows (OCaml is born in France).
It's a good language, but when you build something for the community, you have to make some choices. That was never a priority for Citrix (to be community thing/popular)
@scottalanmiller Xen is born at Cambridge Uni. There is a strong OCaml community there. That's why.