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Re: [Xen-users] Xen vs XCP



2011-04-26 07:34 keltezéssel, PFarthing írta:
Hi all, first post here. I've been working with Vmware for a while and now I'm trying to learn about Xen/XCP. I'm finding myself very confused between the two. Haven't been able to find a product matrix. I know that XCP uses Xen. But I cannot find anything regarding the benefit of the one versus the other anywhere on the net or in the mailing list archives. So, I was wondering if you guys can enlighten me? Which is best for what? Why?
 
Also, I know both use a lot of 3rd party tools. So, if there is a preference for one product over the other, can you also tell me what you use to manage it?
 
Just to mention, cloud computing is not something I'm interested in. That seems relegated to people trying to provide/sell services. I'm looking specifically at building highly available web farms and databases using virtual tech. So far, no plans for building out something that I would sell to others directly, no pushing my vms up to Amazon, not reselling any VPS, etc.
 
thanks!
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Hi,

My memories of Vmware products are quite old, so I wouldn't compare Xen or XCP to them, but the main difference between the two could be outlined in the following:
Xen is a hypervisor (plus some related tools) depending on the version more or less stable.
XCP is a complete solution (based on Xen (e.g. XCP 1.0 has Xen hypervisor 3.4.2)) with a hypervisor kernel and all the tools (okay most of them) bundled into the xe set of commands (even for network and storage management).
Both approaches have their benefits and drawbacks, XCP offers a relatively easy and fast start if you are willing/able to dedicate (at least) one computer to try it. Xen can be installed onto the distribution of your choice (it works even on NetBSD, and it had been working on OpenSolaris as well (not anymore with recent changes)), but you will need to do the resource management (like network and storage) using the tools of that platform. My personal reason of switching from Xen to XCP was not the tools which I had to relearn, but the problem of not finding a suitable and stable kernel for Dom0. Since the switch I had no stability problems (debian lenny before , since then xcp 0.1, 0.5 and now 1.0).
XCP is not without its drawbacks as well for example there is no libvirt support, there weren't fence/stonith agents for clusters running atop (I've started writing one: https://github.com/geza-gemes/Xen-Cloud-Platform-Xensever-stonith-fence-agent/) etc.

Hope that helps making the right choice for your goals.

Regards

Geza
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