Hi all, Wish to participate at this "holly war" as well :) I am using KVM for hosting managment servers and other infrastructure that is outside of the cloud and XenServer 6.2 for cloud hosts. 1. Snapshotting : were problems with old version of virsh/qemu, but for 1.2.2/2.0 snapshotting is working just fine. Slower than XenSererver does it, but still OK. IMHO snapshotting at KVM a bit more complicted: you should consider if it is a image snapshot or live snapshot, qcow2 or raw, etc. 2. Cloning VM-s at KVM also requre more steps to produce. XenServer is much simpler. 3. XenServer has XAPI and everything you need you do using "xe" command interface. Doesn't need CS agent, but this external vhd-util that you need to copy and keep an eye on it makes a scar on ideal picture. 4. XenServer has support for vGPU/pGPU and Cloudstack has implemented it's management. No option if you wish to provide GPU-enabled resources. 5. KVM has nice tools to re-size Linux OS images together with extending FS. It is also aware of HDD partitions. Nice option that we used. Also it is possible to deploy diffrent external tools (like vm-builder) to automate installation of software for OS and set-up different options (users, root password, etc.) 6. KVM has RBD and supports Ceph. We have targeted for this storage type as it offers block storage and object storage at the same time. It is probably not yet ready for production, but seems very promissing.
As a result - I really like both hypervisors for their strong sides :). Will repeat Nux! words -- make one hypervisor work for you. Don't try to find "the best one" - because there is no silver bullet. Don't be afraid to have a "zoo" of technologies. Cloud is aready a Zoo, but as far as you control it and know it -- you are fine. And the bigger the Zoo -- the more animals you can show to you clients ! :) Good luck ! Vadim. -----Original Message----- From: Nux! [mailto:n...@li.nux.ro] Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 1:25 AM To: users@cloudstack.apache.org Subject: Re: XenServer Andrei, I am hopeful the next incarnation of XenServer will be much better/modern, with support for CEPH, GlusterFS etc. Re KVM snapshotting, KVM can do live snapshots of the volumes+memory (you can do it with "virsh"), but ACS doesn't support it; forgot why. Lucian -- Sent from the Delta quadrant using Borg technology! Nux! www.nux.ro ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Andrei Mikhailovsky" <and...@arhont.com> > To: users@cloudstack.apache.org > Sent: Thursday, 30 October, 2014 21:24:06 > Subject: Re: XenServer > I would happily switch to XenServer once they will have ceph support. > I do prefer XenServer and the feature list of ACS + XenServer is a bit better. > > It sucks not having proper snapshotting in KVM where one can create > the whole vm snapshot (volumes + memory) very quickly without the need > to bother snapshotting every volume and wait for ages. > > Andrei > ----- Original Message ----- > >> From: "motty cruz" <motty.c...@gmail.com> >> To: users@cloudstack.apache.org >> Sent: Thursday, 30 October, 2014 8:43:32 PM >> Subject: Re: XenServer > >> I am no expert by any means but my personal opinion, I really like >> XenServer a lot better. I have a cluster of about 5 machines running >> KVM, ACS 4.3. I unable to do snapshot, migrating VMs from one host to >> another takes a long time. I had a very bad experience with "Balloon >> driver", I am traumatize using KVM. > >> XenServer don't need to install cloudstack agent is already >> integrated. I am very happy with XenServer. I still need to work out >> a few lingering issues but thus far am a happy person. > >> Thanks, >> -Motty > >> On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 1:15 PM, Andrei Mikhailovsky >> <and...@arhont.com> >> wrote: > >> > I wold love to see the ability to do proper snapshotting on KVM. >> > XenServer >> > does it so much better! >> > >> > ----- Original Message ----- >> > >> > > From: "Vladimir Melnik" <v.mel...@uplink.ua> >> > > To: users@cloudstack.apache.org >> > > Sent: Thursday, 30 October, 2014 8:09:17 PM >> > > Subject: RE: XenServer >> > >> > > Oh, thank you so much, folks, for your replies on this topic! Now >> > > I understand that I shouldn't migrate to XenServer, as I already >> > > have a bunch of hosts running KVM and it really won't be a good >> > > idea to bread such a zoo. >> > >> > > The only thing that makes me feel envy is an ability to change >> > > configuration of a virtual machine without restarting it. As I >> > > know, KVM doesn't support it yet, am I right? Other XenServer >> > > features don't seem to be so exciting to me :) >> > >> > > One more time - thanks to all who have helped me to decide not to >> > > do something that I would regret. >> > >> > > Best regards, >> > > V. >> > > >> -- >> Thanks for your support, > > Motty
