Migrate from VXRail to xcp-ng and then install xcp-ng on the vxrail servers
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I have a unique opportunity with my parent company to get them off a VXRail VSan/Vsphere and go to XCP-NG. I will build an interim pool to live migrate from the vsphere to xcp and then here's my question. Has anyone taken a vxrail system and used XCP-NG and how would you implement the shared storage aspects of it? In my little world I've been using XCP for several years with a 45drives CEPH cluster on the backend and love it.
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@scboley Ok been doing a little viewing as I haven't looked at the XCP-NG offerings in a while. So XOSTOR is hyperconverged vsan replacement. So would it be possible to take a 5 node Dell VXRail and purchase one extra and configure it with 8.2 XO and XOSTOR and then start moving things onto this take one of the 5 and load with XCP-NG and move some more and eventually replace all of the VMware? Has anyone done something like this? Is XOSTOR a dual type of VSAN offering since it's what is replacing XOSAN? @olivierlambert thoughts?
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Ok it gets better I have 4 R730 with 6 10ge fiber ports 512gb ram each with san backend to use for the migration. Then once I have the migration tested and working move off the vmware rebuild the dell p570f servers to xcp-ng with xostor and move it back then I have some serious playing space for snapshots and all kinds of fun. Does anyone see any gotchas for this project?
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Hey,
Sorry missed your post (very busy ATM). We already had successful cases of customer who migrated from VXRail to Vates. It worked well, even if I don't remember the details myself;
I'm not sure to get the question about "dual type of VSAN"?
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@olivierlambert I guess I just need to understand what the difference in xosan and xostore is plus how that relates to vmwares shared storage. Good your busy keeps the lights on and growing.
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XOSAN is the first HCI solution we made, replaced by XOSTOR which is the only one supported now.
However, HCI is just one thing, we are fully compatible with NFS or iSCSI for shared storage.
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@olivierlambert ok I'm about to go to the parent office and will build a 3 or 4 node Dell R730 with XOSTOR as the HCI and a ton of 7.2k spinners for the storage. I will compile XOA and run it with that for this testing phase. Are there any actual guides for configuring the XOSTOR linstor HCI? This is strictly for a test for getting off vmware vxrail vsan system. So would you recommend 8.2.1 or 8.3 as I'm not sure what the status of XOSTOR and 8.3 is currently and will that be addressed in 8.3.1 or just updates?
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@scboley For now, I recommend sticking with XCP-ng 8.2.1 when using XOSTOR. You can also start a free trial of XOA at xen-orchestra.com and then use that to deploy a trial of XOSTOR.
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@Danp I currently run production 8.2 with a cephfs backend and a compiled XOA and have had zero issues. So if I did the same with 8.2.1 and XOSTOR and XOA what is the cost of per incident based support from Vates?
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@scboley We do not offer per-incident support. See https://vates.tech/pricing-and-support/ for information on our current support offerings.
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Side note:
run in production with 0 issues
Until you have one. Also, getting a software running with 0 issues is a huge investment on the software vendor side (QA/bug tracking is like 80% of the cost to create a software).
Now, if everybody would pay only when they have an issue, do you see the problem? It creates 0 incentive for us to make a working software, because if it is, we'll go bankrupt. To break that bad alignment, we had to find a right model. I explain this with more details at https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2022/05/06/my-vision-for-open-source-pro-support/
By getting support, you are not only paying for assistance but also to be sure the software is maintained and without big problems, which is also good for your production
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@Danp @olivierlambert so I'm going to build this out next week and how can I do the build out with the trials and after that how much would a 4 node xoa managed HCI with XOSTOR run for licensing?
Also are there any guides for best practices for deployment of above configuration? IE what type of network configs for the XOSTOR and the pools.
Also the vmware has a citrix deployment on it so do you have a connection aspect for citrix to interface with the pool same as vmware has?
My R730 servers have 8 10gb fiber ports each so take that into consideration for the xostor configuration.
