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XCP-NG FREE Hypervisor and XO Lite to deploy XOA

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What are all those shortcuts Vladan? Hey everyone and welcome to my new blog post about alternative virtualization platforms. Yes, Free VMware has come to an end and millions of ESXi FREE users are looking for alternative solutions for their home labs, small business or even enterprises. So yes, the time has come to move and adopt another lab solution that does not need you to pay for running a hypervisor within your lab environment.

Note: I'm still privileged to be part of VMware vExpert community so I do not have any licensing costs to run a vSphere Lab. You too, if you contribute and promote VMware products can do so. Apply to become a vExpert here.

Many small business find new VMware licensing too opaque and too expensive, so they are progressively looking for a change after vSphere Essentials and Essentials PLUS packages disappearing. In this post we'll have a short look at the progress of development of XCP-NG virtualization platform, managed by Xen Orchestra.

I have already reported about XCP-NG in the past, as a robust, low cost (Free with community support) virtualization solution that I like and that I'll be exploring further. As I'm on the move fairly often, I'm only carrying a nested virtualization lab (VMware Workstation – Free) and the system runs W11 as an underlying base OS. I'm using this station for other tasks such multimedia etc. But let's get back to XCP-NG and XO Lite which is a web-based UI of the host. The XOA is an equivalent of vCenter server appliance so you have to deploy it on your host so you can manage your cluster(s). Is it Free? Yes it is… -:)

The Shortcuts

  • XCP-NG – This is also a shortcut, which means (quoting Wikipedia here) XCP-ng stands for Xen Cloud Platform – next generation. It is the successor to XCP, initially created as an Open Source version of Citrix XenServer in 2010. At that time XenServer was closed source, with XCP being the open source version containing a subset of features.  As XenServer was open sourced in 2013, the XCP project was halted. Several years later when Citrix stopped delivering XenServer for free and via open source, the project was revived as XCP-ng.

  • XO Lite – Xen Orchestra Lite is a management solution, a web-based UI allowing you to manage your XCP-NG host. A single host. Imagine XO Lite as a VMware ESXi web UI. Same thing. Well, it just started recently, so leave the teams some time so they can catch up on the dev and deliver the full solutions. It's not finished yet, but it's coming. Remember that VMware ESXi web-based UI has not been finished and evolved over several years! Let's see if the guys at Vates can speed things up -:) and allow homelabbers to have a lightweight UI for a single host within a reasonable time.
  • XOA – Xen Orchestra Appliance. This is a full blown solution. A virtual appliance whcih we can compare to VMware vCSA. You have to deploy it on one of your XCP-NG hosts and we'll show you one of the ways today, in this post.

Deployment of XOA via XO Lite

There are several ways to deploy XOA. You can use the UI within XO Lite (our way today), you can do it via Vates website here, or you can do it via CLI from the console on your XCP-NG host.

Deployment via UI is fairly simple, but you need an internet connection as you'll have to download the bits to your system. So there is also a way to do an “offline” installation where you first download XOA locally and then deploy to your host.

First click the button Deploy XOA at the right-top.

Then enter the networking details (usually, configure your DNS beforehand, then assign static IP). That's what I usually do as I don't want that my servers using random IPs from my DHCP.

once done, just sit back and wait for the “green light”. The VM will be downloaded to your XCP-NG host and powered on automatically. You'll see the green icon.

Click the Access XOA button to go to the connection screen.

And after a login, you are in…

If you want to try all the functions the appliance provides, you'll need to register for a trial. One of the such a functions is backup. Yes, the product integrates a backup feature which can backup your VMs without the need for external backup solution. Depends what you want to do, what's the purpose of your test. If you just want a home lab, you'll probably be good with a backup solution that allows you to install agents in your VMs and backup them as not many backup solutions out there supports directly XCP-NG. All well known backup solutions which have a free (community) editions, allows you to install agent in your VM and then run the backup from a central console. Veeam or Nakivo, both can do that.

Cluster – Why each host create its own cluster?

After adding a couple of hosts,  you realize that each host creates its own cluster. Hmm, it's like this… Id' definitely see this as a not really productive, but.

You'll want to have all your hosts in one cluster, right? Let's do that.

Remove a host from an existing pool​

To remove one host from a pool, you can go to the “Advanced” tab of the host page for the host you wish to remove, and click on “Detach

Then go back and navigate to Home > Pools, and click on the desired pool. Then in the top right, click the Add Hosts button and select your new host.

This was just a quick intro to get you started. You'll find many resources, guides and how-to's at Vates site who is the creator of XCP-NG and Xen Orchestra.

 

 

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About Vladan SEGET

This website is maintained by Vladan SEGET. Vladan is as an Independent consultant, professional blogger, vExpert x16, Veeam Vanguard x9, VCAP-DCA/DCD, ESX Virtualization site has started as a simple bookmarking site, but quickly found a large following of readers and subscribers.

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