Xen orchestra - anyone?
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Hey there
Anyone use or check out https://xen-orchestra.com/#!/ before? I just stumbled across this. Looking for any insight or usage case.
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It was discussed as recently as yesterday. Someone is currently building out a XenServer cluster specifically for testing it.
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Very cool . Is the thread on here somwhere?
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Just apears as if have to install as Virtual Machine inside your XenServer Pool (on one of the nodes). At first glance, I thought could possibly install this XO on a cloud hosted instance and it could push/pull that way. Otherwise, still relying on an 'inside source' for the Pool/cluster management.
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Don't you generally want an inside source? It's standard on all VM platforms to run the management from the cluster itself. What would be the goal of having it hosted externally?
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For outside DR? Just some random thoughts and I might overly clear in my thought process right now.. extremely groggy & tired feeling today. blah
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@ntoxicator said:
For outside DR?
XO doesn't provide any DR functionality and if the cluster is down, having access to the console for it won't be useful. It's only useful when the cluster is accessible. But it is still important when the cluster is offline. So having it outside would actually hurt DR, rather than helping it. Remember it is just for managing the cluster, so being on the cluster is best practice.
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I've tried it before. It's a nice tool, but expensive for what you get.
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There is a free version, but boy is it limited.
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@scottalanmiller said:
There is a free version, but boy is it limited.
Especially with this.
All plans have 1 year commitment (except Early Access). NO tacit renewal, you have to re-purchase after ending your subscription.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Don't you generally want an inside source? It's standard on all VM platforms to run the management from the cluster itself. What would be the goal of having it hosted externally?
Even vCenter is done this way.
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FYI, in case you haven't seen it here is a decent rundown on installation of XO and a basic overview of it's featureset: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkqQg1C_ZT8
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Hi lads!
I'm XO's project leader
- @scottalanmiller XO does provide DR features, see https://xen-orchestra.com/docs/disaster_recovery.html
- @johnhooks it's all Open Source (aGPLv3). If you don't want the turnkey solution (appliance and pro support), "use the sources Luke"
- about the price itself, please consider you'll have an appliance with support working out of the box (plus the web updater). And price is flat.
- complete features list is here: https://xen-orchestra.com/docs/features.html
Last thing, about using it inside or outside your infrastructure: because it's agent-less, you can use it everywhere. You can even imagine a small host with only XOA inside, the thing needed to "talk" to your others XenServer host is only a TCP connection to port 443. VPN connection to multiple datacenter is fairly possible (or other tunnels).
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@olivier First... WELCOME! Awesome to see XO here!
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@olivier said:
Last thing, about using it inside or outside your infrastructure: because it's agent-less, you can use it everywhere.
What would XO themselves (read: you) suggest as a best practice, then, if everything is an option?
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Thanks
Feel free to post suggestion or report issues, that's how we can improve it.
About the best practice: "it depends". It depends of:
- your current geographical distribution of your infrastructure
- your infrastructure size
- your security policy
One site, medium infrastructure (common case): XOA inside your cluster. Use backup feature of XOA for backuping itself on a NFS share (which can be replicated outside) or use DR. This way, even if you lost your whole site, you'll be able to restore it. I mean, if it happens, that's normal to lose XOA itself in the process. With a complete pool offline, having a management system won't be really useful anyway.
Large DCs distributed: backup/DR, tunnels (GRE, VPN or SSH, it doesn't matter)
Very small remote infrastructure: XAPI on the web directly. But use a very strong and random root password (XAPI use root account, not possible to do otherwise).
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Lots of XenServer users here in MangoLassi and lots of interest in it as well. Hopefully this community will be very beneficial for Xen Orchestra.
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@olivier said:
Hi lads!
I'm XO's project leader
- @scottalanmiller XO does provide DR features, see https://xen-orchestra.com/docs/disaster_recovery.html
- @johnhooks it's all Open Source (aGPLv3). If you don't want the turnkey solution (appliance and pro support), "use the sources Luke"
- about the price itself, please consider you'll have an appliance with support working out of the box (plus the web updater). And price is flat.
- complete features list is here: https://xen-orchestra.com/docs/features.html
Last thing, about using it inside or outside your infrastructure: because it's agent-less, you can use it everywhere. You can even imagine a small host with only XOA inside, the thing needed to "talk" to your others XenServer host is only a TCP connection to port 443. VPN connection to multiple datacenter is fairly possible (or other tunnels).
That's awesome! Somehow I missed the open source haha
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@johnhooks said:
@olivier said:
Hi lads!
I'm XO's project leader
- @scottalanmiller XO does provide DR features, see https://xen-orchestra.com/docs/disaster_recovery.html
- @johnhooks it's all Open Source (aGPLv3). If you don't want the turnkey solution (appliance and pro support), "use the sources Luke"
- about the price itself, please consider you'll have an appliance with support working out of the box (plus the web updater). And price is flat.
- complete features list is here: https://xen-orchestra.com/docs/features.html
Last thing, about using it inside or outside your infrastructure: because it's agent-less, you can use it everywhere. You can even imagine a small host with only XOA inside, the thing needed to "talk" to your others XenServer host is only a TCP connection to port 443. VPN connection to multiple datacenter is fairly possible (or other tunnels).
That's awesome! Somehow I missed the open source haha
So did I, this is really good news.
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Sadly the open source build is built on Debian 7 (Wheezy) 64 bits, which is almost 3 years out of date.
You'd really want to update once you have the system working to be secured if you go with the free version.
Then you'd have to confirm that everything is working as expected.
