XCP-ng support

[olivierlambert]

Hi everyone!

Due to the raising demand from our VMware users migrating to XCP-ng, I thought it could be useful to create a thread here.

I'm Olivier, CEO and co-founder of Vates (https://vates.tech), the company behind both XCP-ng and Xen Orchestra (XO). Despite XO already does VM backups, I'm completely fine to grow the ecosystem to add features we won't do anyway (like application aware backup for example). You can already use VEEAM agent in your VM to do it, but people are asking for even more integration.

Unlike for some other platforms, and as the editor of the whole stack, I'm ready to provide some internal resources so the VEEAM team could catch up pretty fast, since all the APIs already exists. We have 10 years of knowledge consuming XCP-ng API, so this could be really worthwhile for VEEAM to quickly get a working solution.

Let me know what can be done to make things moving forward

Bonus points: if you do the VEEAM integration for XCP-ng API, you will also automatically have it for XenServer, since we use the same API. 2 birds one stone!

edit: as a proof of our commitment to help you, I already added VEEAM as a compatible solution with agents in our official XCP-ng doc: https://docs.xcp-ng.org/project/ecosystem/#veeam

[Gostev]

Hi, Olivier. Thank you for registering and your kind offer. At the moment we don't have R&D resources available to work on XCP-ng integration for host-level backups. We will contact you should this change in future. Meanwhile you're right, agent-based backup is the way to go. Best regards!

[olivierlambert]

Thanks Gostev! And no problem

Let me know anytime if you need an overview on the current API to speed up things

[flakpyro]

As a long time Veeam user (since 2010!) i would LOVE XCP-NG/XenServer support to be added to Veeam. Broadcom came along and killed all Edu/Academic discounts and shot our renewal price up 8X this year, and as a result we are in the process of moving to XCP-NG/XenOrchestra. The built in backup/replication is decent but if Veeam support was there we would definitely continue paying for and using Veeam!

[nathano]

I’ve spun up xcp-ng and liking it so far. We will be moving our workloads that are backed up by Veeam to hyperV but will move other workloads to xcp

Coming from VMware I found it pretty easy to get going after watching a few videos from Tom Lawrence

Agent based backups have a few limitations when it comes to restoring iirc so not something I’m considering at this point.

Not an issue for me yet, but hopefully the 2TB vhd limit is in the pipeline to be addressed.

[Gostev]

Could you clarify what few limitations are you referring to?

VHD is way too old to change now. Why not just use VHDX, these can go up to 64TB.

[nathano]

Sorry. For some reason I was thinking there were issue restoring agent backups to other hypervisors but I am mistaken.

But still the issue of the agent needing direct access to the repo iirc whereas the VMware type backup can be separate.

I’m aware the 2TB limit is due to the use of VHD, not sure why they have not gone to vhdx yet. Would be good.

I understand why it’s unlikely to be on the Veeam radar being xen based when others are KVM which you already support.

[coocam]

i would like to see this implementation for our workloads with Xen

[emanuele.mure]

Same here.
i would like to see this new feature.

[m.novelli]

Hi, Olivier. Thank you for registering and your kind offer. At the moment we don't have R&D resources available to work on XCP-ng integration for host-level backups. We will contact you should this change in future. Meanwhile you're right, agent-based backup is the way to go. Best regards!

Hi Gostev, instead of working on Enterprise Features to milk Enterprise Customers with Enterprise Licenses I suggest to Veeam to look around to support as many Hypervisors as possible... you are leaving money on the table from SMB Customers

Today's world is dominated by Enterprise Customers but the future... I predict (hope) a collapse of those big pachyderms

Marco

[SkyDiver79]

I think Xen as Hypervisor has no Future. All Big Player, include SUSE have change to KVM.

With the build in Feature to migrate ESXi VMs to Proxmox, makes very easy to go KVM based virtualization.

[jvlad]

I would like to put a feature request behind this as well.

Been using the Veeam agent on my XenServer environment and works OK but full backup support would be really bloody wonderful.
PS.. maybe just me but with Veeam Agent restores, i can only get it to restore over the network at 100Mbit. I messed around with some nic drivers but never been able to get it working faster then 100Mbit which kind of sks.

[jcross@hh]

I would also like to see this integration. If I recall correctly regarding KVM, it's not just the hypervisor that matters, but the control plane which makes it not a one size fits all solution for all KVM. With XCP-NG and using the API, due to its architecture, it would benefit both Citrix Xen and XCP-NG. There are still some areas I'd love to see Xen make more progress, but there are also areas that I'm personally not fully ready to deploy KVM. Just my $.02.

[Gostev]

Hi Joshua, what about oVirt for the KVM control plane? One of our large customers (big brand) has RHV infrastructure of a few thousand VMs. That is in additions to their main vSphere farm which is many times bigger, of course. But it works well for them... well, worked well - until Red Hat decided to discontinue RHV.

[jmannik]

I think Xen as Hypervisor has no Future. All Big Player, include SUSE have change to KVM.

With the build in Feature to migrate ESXi VMs to Proxmox, makes very easy to go KVM based virtualization.

I disagree that Xen has no future, also there is a migration tool/feature in XCP-NG to migrate from VMWare already in place (and worked incredibly well in my homelab migration).

I would also love to see XCP-NG support at the hypervisor level instead of agents, so put me down for another feature request.

[newman]

Hi Gostev, instead of working on Enterprise Features to milk Enterprise Customers with Enterprise Licenses I suggest to Veeam to look around to support as many Hypervisors as possible... you are leaving money on the table from SMB Customers

Today's world is dominated by Enterprise Customers but the future... I predict (hope) a collapse of those big pachyderms

Marco

Well they are also busy with delivering a non Windows based Veeam Backup Server, a web based console instead of the installable one, hopefully in this decade. I see XCP-ng as an option - a really good one - for SMB-s who are not on expert level in everything just to run Proxmox, instead of their current VMware.

[ralfl]

I do not see a real benefit using XCP-ng with Support....
https://vates.tech/pricing-and-support/
It's expensive too....

[SkyDiver79]

Well they are also busy with delivering a non Windows based Veeam Backup Server, a web based console instead of the installable one, hopefully in this decade. I see XCP-ng as an option - a really good one - for SMB-s who are not on expert level in everything just to run Proxmox, instead of their current VMware.

With Proxmox, the GUI is much more similar to that of vSphere and the changeover is easier for the admins.
What also deters many SMBs is the limitation to 2TB per vDisk or you lose an extremely important feature, incremental backups.

I have already shown some customers the options:
Hyper-V, XCP-ng and Proxmox.
Few customers opt for HyperV, if they do, it's because they want to be able to continue using Veeam in full.
All the others have opted for Proxmox just because of the GUI, as it is much easier to get used to.
One point in favor of Proxmox is with German authorities, also the German support.

Veeam will not be able to support every hypervisor, so my opinion is that XCP-ng will not find the necessary distribution to make it interesting for Veeam.

[SkyDiver79]

I disagree that Xen has no future, also there is a migration tool/feature in XCP-NG to migrate from VMWare already in place (and worked incredibly well in my homelab migration).

Do you mean the Conversion Manager?
https://docs.xenserver.com/en-us/xenser ... nager.html
The thing has extreme limitations. vDisks under 2TB, a maximum of 3 vDisks per VM and only a very limited number of guest OS are supported.

Live migration from ESXi to Proxmox without such limitations is simply better.

[DE&C]

I find it honorable that XCP-ng writes such a commitment. There are many Hyper-Visor vendors that do not consider this necessary (unfortunately).

+1 for the feature request.

[moderniste]

+1 for XCP-ng

It's a real alternative with XEN technology, and great features, I tried it because we are leaving from hyper-v, unfortunately not integrate with Veeam at host level. So It's a no go in our company...

[Gostev]

While completely unrelated to XCP-ng, reposting here merely for awareness:

Support for host-level backup of Oracle Linux KVM hypervisor is now generally available.

Download the plug-in now > Veeam Backup for Oracle Linux KVM
Datasheet from Oracle > Oracle Linux KVM and Virtualization Manager

Our dedicated subforum for oVirt KVM based hypervisors (RHV and OLKVM) > oVirt KVM
Please post any OLKVM-related questions there and the responsible PM will answer.

[flakpyro]

With Proxmox, the GUI is much more similar to that of vSphere and the changeover is easier for the admins.
What also deters many SMBs is the limitation to 2TB per vDisk or you lose an extremely important feature, incremental backups.

I have already shown some customers the options:
Hyper-V, XCP-ng and Proxmox.
Few customers opt for HyperV, if they do, it's because they want to be able to continue using Veeam in full.
All the others have opted for Proxmox just because of the GUI, as it is much easier to get used to.
One point in favor of Proxmox is with German authorities, also the German support.

Veeam will not be able to support every hypervisor, so my opinion is that XCP-ng will not find the necessary distribution to make it interesting for Veeam.

I agree the 2TB limitation does need to be overcome sooner rather than later. I hope Vates has this as a top priority along with their new UI in Xen Orchestra 6. However XCP-NG DOES support incremental backups already. https://docs.xcp-ng.org/management/backup/

[SkyDiver79]

Yes, up to 2TB vDisks. Bigger vDisks only Full Backupsy

[olivierlambert]

With Proxmox, the GUI is much more similar to that of vSphere and the changeover is easier for the admins.
What also deters many SMBs is the limitation to 2TB per vDisk or you lose an extremely important feature, incremental backups.

I have already shown some customers the options:
Hyper-V, XCP-ng and Proxmox.
Few customers opt for HyperV, if they do, it's because they want to be able to continue using Veeam in full.
All the others have opted for Proxmox just because of the GUI, as it is much easier to get used to.
One point in favor of Proxmox is with German authorities, also the German support.

Veeam will not be able to support every hypervisor, so my opinion is that XCP-ng will not find the necessary distribution to make it interesting for Veeam.

I never understand why -on a regular basis- some Proxmox fans are always trying to undermine XCP-ng. This doesn't give a great opinion on the Proxmox community…

[olivierlambert]

About SMAPIv3 and removing the 2TiB limitation: keep an eye open for a blog post next week

[olivierlambert]

Do you mean the Conversion Manager?

No, a dedicated integrated tool in Xen Orchestra, called V2V. There's an UI, it's connecting to the ESXi host, and list the VMs. You select all VMs you want to migrate and that's it (yes you can do many VMs at once).

It's even supporting warm migration from VMware to XCP-ng (using the incremental export from VMware). It exists since more than 1y, far before Proxmox did their tool. That's how we convert 99% of our new customers coming from VMware.

[MarcLachapelle]

Some of my customers are using Veeam B&R o Hyper-V and it is perfect. I'd like to see the agentless version on XCP-ng. XCP-ng is a serious alternative to VMWare and XCP-ng being open source supporting it would allow many universities, homelabbers, etc. to train on you rtool otherwise than in production. I work in cybersecurity and we need better train everybody on backup best practices. If people train on your tool you can bet they will deploy your tool in production

[merku]

+1 for xcp-ng

I think many customers are shifting their focus to viable alternatives to VMware and it would be great to fully utilize its agentless features.

[jcross@hh]

Hi Joshua, what about oVirt for the KVM control plane? One of our large customers (big brand) has RHV infrastructure of a few thousand VMs. That is in additions to their main vSphere farm which is many times bigger, of course. But it works well for them... well, worked well - until Red Hat decided to discontinue RHV.

Hi Gostev,

oVirt is still Red Hat (and derivative) centric even with the deprecation of RHV. Although there are efforts to bring it to Debian, it still seems like it has a little way to go (unless my information is outdated). But this actually illustrates my point. KVM is available with any Linux distribution (Red Hat, Debian, Suse, Oracle, Ubuntu, etc.), but Veeam cannot be made compatible with KVM, it must be made compatible with whatever KVM control plane is used. oVirt could get there, but it's not there yet, and it isn't the only KVM control plane. It is a different architecture from Xen where building something for XCP-NG will also benefit Citrix Xen. Just my $.02.