Re: [Xen-API] Announcing new version of "XCP"

[Mike McClurg <mike.mcclurg@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 25/06/13 18:56, Outback Dingo wrote:
> Actually, to be a devils advocate, this sounds a bit disturbing to
> me, as XCP is getting the AXE..... however when we speak of porting
> it to the likes of ubuntu and other flavors ala carte kronos, is it
> itself going to have feature parity with XenServer, and is that in
> fact going to have the current features in XCP like HA and the rest,
> and are said pieces going to remain free..... what about the things
> like compiling from sources, and rerolling the XCP ISO with drivers
> and such?? are we still going to be able to avail of such pleasures
> we had with XCP, XAPI, and not loose out on other things in the
> future?? Consider me quite on edge that the XCP i know is about to
> morph into something quite different then what we have had the
> pleasure to use freely.
Hi Outback Dingo,

Thanks for sharing your concerns. I'll try to address your points each 
in turn.
* Will xapi on Debian/Fedora/etc have feature parity with XenServer?

No, probably not entirely. XenServer (and XCP) is a custom Linux distro 
based on Xen, Xapi and CentOS 5.x. Because of this, we can control the 
entire build and assembly process, to include custom patches to the 
kernel and hypervisor. We wouldn't have this level of control over 
packages in downstream distros.
Since we're open sourcing more of XenServer's current code, however, we 
will be more likely to get closer to broad feature compatibility with 
XenServer (for instance, we may be able to package xha for 
Debian/CentOS, and then "kronos" users could get HA -- XCP users have 
never had HA).
And perhaps in the future, we may have features enabled in Xapi which 
won't be enabled by default in XenServer, because they're too 
experimental (for instance, Dave Scott is working on a demo of Xapi 
running on CentOS 6.4 with Ceph storage backends). This will be useable 
on CentOS far sooner than it will be in XenServer proper.
* Will XenServer have feature parity with XCP?

XenServer has always had more features than XCP, such as HA, proper 
integration with XenCenter, and timely (and easy to install) hotfixes. I 
think that the experience that users will get from XenServer will be 
much better than they ever had on XCP.
* Will this code remain free?

Yes. Citrix is committed to open source, and revoking the BSD/GPL 
licenses from the current code will be impossible in many cases (and 
would be corporate suicide anyway).
* Will XenServer remain free to use?

From a business standpoint, keeping XenServer free and selling support 
contracts on top of it is a great strategic decision because it really 
positions XenServer as the go-to virtualisation platform for the cloud 
and enterprise.
I could imagine a scenario where Citrix might want to sell a particular 
feature on top of XenServer, but all the discussions I've heard about 
this so far have been that XenServer is free and will stay free. The 
company stands fully behind the current strategy from top to bottom.
I hope that answers your questions and dispels any fears you have about 
the transition from XCP to XenServer. I can honestly say that I believe 
this is the right thing for Citrix to do, and that this is a better deal 
for XCP users than they've had before.
Mike

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