1. The Open Source Solutions Center
Xen Cloud Platform
Prepared by: Sorn Theary

2. A Brief History of Xen in the Cloud
Late 90s Oct ‘03 ‘04 ‘06 ‘08 ‘09 ‘11 ‘12
XenoServer Project XenSource Amazon EC2 XCP 1.1
(Cambridge Univ.) founded and Slicehost Released
launched
Xen Presented Rackspace XCP packages
at SOSP Cloud in Linux
Xen Cloud Platform
Announced

3. Xen.org
• Xen project is similar to Linux Kernel
• Projects
• Xen Hypervisor v4.x
• Xen Cloud Platform (XCP)
• More other projects

4. The Xen Cloud Platform is...
Open source distribution of Citrix’s
XenServer (Xen Hypervisor +
CentOS)
XCP style like an appliance based
on CentOS 5.X
Distributed as a “black-box”
Use as datacenter and cloud-ready
management by XAPI

5. XAPI: What is it?
• XAPI is the backbone of XCP (XAPI= Xen Application Programming Interface)
• Provides the glue between all components
• Is the backend for all management applications
• Designed to by highly programmable
• API bindings for many languages: C#/.NET, Java, C, Powershell, Python
• XAPI is extensible via plugins OR cloud integrations
• E.g. used by CloudStack and OpenStack

6. XCP Feature Overview
• VM lifecycle: live snapshots, migration
• Resource pools: flexible storage and networking
• Event tracking: progress, notification
• Upgrade and patching capabilities
• Real-time performance monitoring and alerting
• Built-in support and templates for Windows and Linux guests
• Paravirtualized drivers optimized for Windows VMs

7. XAPI Management Options
• XAPI frontend command line tool: xe (tab-completable, scriptable)
• Desktop GUIs
• Citrix XenCenter (Windows-only)
• OpenXenManager (open source cross-platform XenCenter clone)
• Web interfaces
• Xen VNC Proxy (XVP)
• XenWebManager (web-based clone of OpenXenManager)

8. XCP and Cloud Orchestration Stacks

9. XCP New Developments

10. XCP-XAPI Packages in Linux
• Make the XAPI toolstack independent of CentOS 5.5
• Extend the delivery model
• Deliver Xen, XAPI and everything in between (storage manager, network
support, etc.) via your favorite Linux distro
• “apt-get install xcp-xapi” or “yum install xcp-xapi”
• Debian 7.0 “Wheezy"
• Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
• Next: Fedora & CentOS

11. XCP 1.5 (beta) features
• Internal Improvements: Xen 4.1
• Performance and Scalability:
• 1 TB of RAM/host
• 16 VCPUs/VM, 128 GB/VM
• Networking: Active-Backup NIC Bonding
• More guest OS templates: Ubuntu 10.04, Debian Squeeze, Oracle Enterprise
Linux 6.0, SLES 10 SP4

12. XCP 1.6 – to ship in Sep/Oct 12
• Internal Improvements: Xen 4.1.2, CentOS 5.7 with kernel 2.6.32.43
• New format Windows drivers: installable by Windows Update Service
• Networking: Better VLAN scalability, IPv6
• More guest OS templates: Ubuntu Precise
12.04, RHEL/CentOS, Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.1 & 6.2, Windows 8
• Storage XenMotion:
• Migrate VMs between hosts or pools without shared storage
• Move a VM’s disks between storage repositories while the VM is running

13. Storage XenMotion in pictures

14. Live Storage XenMotion
Live
Virtual
Machine
XCP Host
VDI(s)
Moving VMs between storage tiers or upgrading storage

15. Live Storage XenMotion
Live
Virtual
Machine
XenServer Hypervisor XenServer Hypervisor
XenServer Hypervisor XenServer Hypervisor
XCP Host XCP Host
VDI(s)
Local Local
Storage Storage
XCP Pool 1 XCP Pool 2
Moving or rebalancing VMs between Pools (Local  Local)

16. Live Storage XenMotion
Live
Virtual
Machine
XenServer Hypervisor XenServer Hypervisor
XenServer Hypervisor XenServer Hypervisor
XCP Host XCP Host
VDI(s)
Local
Storage FC, iSCSI, NFS SAN
XCP Pool 1 XCP Pool 2
Moving or rebalancing VMs between Pools (Local  SAN)

17. Summary: Why XCP?

18. • Mailing List: xen-api@lists.xen.org
• Wiki/Doc: http://wiki.xen.org or http://xen.org
• Beginners & User Categories
• XCP Category
Questions… ???