James Bulpin XenServer CTO

James.Bulpin@citrix.com

Xen Project User Summit - Xen, XenServer, and XAPI: What’s the Difference?

@JamesBulpin

Russell Pavlicek Xen Project Evangelist

Russell.Pavlicek@XenProject.org

@RCPavlicek

• Linux author/evangelist/speaker since 1995

• Formerly FOSS columnist for Infoworld, Processor, panelist on The Linux Show webcast, speaker at ~50 FOSS conferences

• Xen Project Evangelist hired by Citrix in January 2013

• Xen user/admin/integrator/ tester since 2004

• XenSource startup veteran

• Leads Citrix XenServer technical strategy

About the Speakers...

Russ James

• …until you ask them

• Some days, it seems there is more confusion about the naming conventions than about the software

• When some people talk about “Xen”, they mean “Xen Project”, but others mean “XenServer”, and yet others “XAPI”

• It is time to clear up the confusion

The Problem: Everyone Knows What Xen Is...

• The Leading Open Source Hypervisor

• Open Source – now and always!

• A Linux Foundation Collaborative Project since April 2013

• Celebrating its 10th anniversary

• Home for several subproject teams

What is the Xen Project?

Xen Project: A Short History

• The Xen Hypervisor: the main game

• PVOPS: (not technically a subproject, but…) allows Linux to run paravirtualized on a hypervisor (Xen, VMware VMI, …)

• The Xen ARM Hypervisor: branching into new architecture

• XAPI Project: more on this later

• Mirage OS: focused appliances built on a specialized library operating system (in incubation)

The Xen Project Subproject Teams

Xen Hypervisor: The Crux of the Xen Project

• Type 1 Hypervisor: Does not run in the kernel

• VMs compete with other VMs for resources, not with processes

• Architecture emphasizes security • Uses toolstacks for Control Domain

to talk to Hypervisor • Default is XL (improved on XM) • Libvirt/VIRSH option • No native GUI

Xen Project Corporate Members

Is your company listed here? Should it be? If you are heavily invested in Xen, consider project membership.

• Nexus of information regarding the Xen Project

• Newly revamped and revised in April 2013

• Access to Articles, Blogs, Wiki, Q&A, Mailing Lists, etc.

• New monthly newsletter with highlights from the community

• Sign up for the website and newsletter today, if you haven’t already!

XenProject.org: The Hub of Information

Xen Project Mascot

Because a cute panda is a terrible thing to waste

• A distribution of Xen, the XAPI toolstack, Linux and other components

• A “shrink-wrapped”, ready to run, virtualization platform

• Builds on basic Xen virtualization to provide high level management:

Networking High availability

Storage Cluster management

User accounts Performance monitoring

If That’s Xen, What is XenServer?

• Started as “XenEnterprise”, a product of XenSource Inc.

– First released in 2006

– Initially a proprietary product built on top of the open-source Xen hypervisor

• Evolved into XenServer, a product of Citrix

– Now up to version 6.2 (released June 2013)

• Became an open-source project in 2013

XenServer – a brief history

Xen

Linux Kernel XAPI

Storage

Manager

XenServer

Tools (PV

drivers)

HA

CentOS 5.x

AD Integration

XenCenter

XenServer – previously

Transfer VM

CIM Server

Qemu

Proprietary

OSS, public dev

Key:

OSS, non-public dev

Xen

Linux Kernel XAPI

Storage

Manager

XenServer

Tools (PV

drivers)

HA

CentOS 5.x

AD Integration

XenCenter

XenServer – after open sourcing

Proprietary

OSS

Key:

Transfer VM

CIM Server

Qemu

• A Citrix-led project

• Removing barriers to collaboration

• Roadmaps, designs and architectural plans discussed in the open

• All code is public; contributions via mailing list and Github pull requests

• More efficient ecosystem through access to design, code and developers

XenServer.org – the open-source project

#1 a set of components

– XenCenter UI

– Windows PV drivers

– HA daemon

– vncterm

– …

#2 an integration/distribution of components

– Choice of component versions

– Backporting of patches

– Configuration and tuning

– Packaging

– …

XenServer.org – two parts to it

But Xen and XAPI are Xen Project components so XenServer developers

contribute to those projects and the results are integrated and packaged into XenServer

• Citrix’s product release from the Open Source project code

• Made available to all for free

• Optional commercial support offering from Citrix

Citrix XenServer

• A toolstack for managing Xen system

– The xapi daemon and its friends; the “xe” CLI

• Works at a higher level than the Xen Project toolstack

– Clustering, storage/network management, host setup, …

• Open-sourced by Citrix in 2009

• Now part of the Xen Project in the Linux Foundation

• Useful for Xen users who want richer API-driven management (such as under OpenStack clouds)

So What is XAPI?

“Xen Cloud Platform” – an overloaded term

• Meaning 1: a synonym for XAPI (particularly for packaged versions)

• Meaning 2: XenServer-like binary ISOs

– Built to provide a distribution for xapi without non-FOSS XenServer pieces

– Provided a wider feature set than the free edition of Citrix XenServer which had certain features disabled

What is XCP?

• XCP and open-source XenServer will merge

– XenServer no longer disables features for non-paying users

• Users of XCP v1.6 are able to upgrade to XenServer

• XCP users will be getting a better deal than they had before

– No more delays to XCP releases

– Timely hotfixes that can be easily installed,

– A product that's even more open than it was before.

XCP (the ISO) is no more

And you thought this talk would be easy… ;)

And Now It Is QUIZ TIME!

Question: Xen, XenServer, or XAPI?

Answer: Xen (Xen Project Mascot)

Question: Xen, XenServer, or XAPI?

Answer: XenServer (XenCenter)

Question: Xen, XenCenter, or XAPI?

Answer: XenServer

Question: Xen, XenCenter, or XAPI?

Answer: Xen and XAPI

$ xe vdi-create \

name-label=LogDisk \

sr-uuid=6021e2b0-c72e-6e9e-01cc-ba3ed4f68be9 \

virtual-size=10GiB type=user

$ xe vbd-create device=2 type=Disk \

vm-uuid=d2f6e2cd-8a98-7e1c-7a46-f4dcff3b56ce \

vdi-uuid=cdd63557-89ad-4011-b638-e063f8b08298

$ xe vm-start vm=MyDHCPServer

Question: Xen, XenServer, or XAPI?

$ xe vdi-create \

name-label=LogDisk \

sr-uuid=6021e2b0-c72e-6e9e-01cc-ba3ed4f68be9 \

virtual-size=10GiB type=user

$ xe vbd-create device=2 type=Disk \

vm-uuid=d2f6e2cd-8a98-7e1c-7a46-f4dcff3b56ce \

vdi-uuid=cdd63557-89ad-4011-b638-e063f8b08298

$ xe vm-start vm=MyDHCPServer

Answer: XAPI (xe CLI)

# xl create -c /etc/xen/wheezy64

# xen-create-image \

--genpass=0 --memory=1024M --noswap --dhcp \

--password="xenroot" --pygrub --size=8G \

--vcpus=2 --arch=amd64 --bridge=virbr0 \

--hostname=wheezy64 --lvm=vms \

--mirror=http://cdn.debian.net/debian \

--install-method=debootstrap \

--dist=wheezy

Question: Xen, XenServer, or XAPI?

# xl create -c /etc/xen/wheezy64

# xen-create-image \

--genpass=0 --memory=1024M --noswap --dhcp \

--password="xenroot" --pygrub --size=8G \

--vcpus=2 --arch=amd64 --bridge=virbr0 \

--hostname=wheezy64 --lvm=vms \

--mirror=http://cdn.debian.net/debian \

--install-method=debootstrap \

--dist=wheezy

Answer: Xen (xl and command line utility)

Extra Credit: Xen, XenServer, or XAPI?

Answer: Trick Question!

Used by Xen and XenServer, but a separate project entirely!

Thank You!

Slides available under CC-BY-SA 3.0 From www.slideshare.net/xen_com_mgr

@RCPavlicek @JamesBulpin

@Xen_Org

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– Stackoverflow-like Q&A

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