Many enterprise customers, small and medium businesses are starting to think how to deal with the price increase of VMware/Broadcom licensing after the Broadcom acquisition of VMware. It has already been quite some time but as time goes, finally, not many enterprises have made the move and actually installed other hypervisors.
This is due to the fact, that they still run-on older VMware support contracts, but those contracts will come to an end, sooner or later.
It might be useful to know that there are now much more viable alternatives than there was 10 years ago where only VMware and Hyper-V were the serious ones.
Admins shall be looking for platforms with transparent pricing models, lower or zero licensing fees, and fair support and maintenance costs. Open-source platform options which provide enterprise-level capabilities at a fraction of the cost are the one to go in order to stay competitive. Those are the ways that you can get the best value for your investment.
Other things that admins need to consider is the conversion from one hypervisor format to another. This is often very time (and cost) consuming. Also, the new platform needs to be protected so if you as an admin has already invested in one backup protection vendor and want to change your virtual infrastructure, you need to make sure that either your vendor can support you for your change or you need to find another solution. Ideally, the new hypervisor ecosystem will have its own backup solution.
Today’s post will be about XCP-NG hypervisor that has a very good chance to become one of the leading alternatives as the XCP-NG eco system has a conversion tool that allows you to convert running VMware VMs (even the ones running in remote locations – by streaming) into the XCP-NG format, and it also has a built-in backup tool to backup running VMs.
XCP-NG hypervisor – The core of the system
The XCP-NG is the hypervisor which is, compared to VMware ESXi, very similar (at least the deployment and configuration). The installation and the console look pretty much the same as VMware ESXi so you won’t have any difficulties to configure your hosts.
And the same way as VMware has started at their beginnings to add web-based management to each ESXi hypervisor, XCP-NG does the same. In fact, the latest XCP-NG has a web-based management, that allows you to manage the host via web-browser.
You can only manage single host, not a cluster. If you want to manage a cluster, you’ll need to deploy a Xen Orchestra Appliance (XOA) which is an equivalent of VMware vCenter Server. It is a VM to deploy on your XCP-NG host.
As you can see on the image below, you can configure several things such as the language or the appearance or go ahead and deploy XOA directly from within the XCP-NG user interface. The XOA VM is an alternative what we know as VMware vCenter server. It’s a centralized management for your clusters.
Migrations from VMware
You can migrate by using Xen Orchestra Appliance (XOA). Xen Orchestra allows you to easily migrate your VMware VMs to XCP-ng. This tool supports migration from any accessible ESXi host, including those at remote locations, by directly streaming the VMs to XCP-ng.
Note: You need to be on Trial or have an active support, in order this to work. But hey, if you’re serious with your migration, you’ll most likely take the support, right?
Core Architecture
Both XCP-NG and VMware ESXi are Type-1 (bare metal) hypervisors, meaning they run directly on the host’s hardware without requiring an underlying operating system.
Both platforms, VMware or XCP-NG, offers comprehensive virtual machine management features:
- Live migration of running VMs between hosts
- Centralized management interface (XCP-NG uses Xen Orchestra, while ESXi uses vSphere)
- Storage migration and management
- Snapshot functionality for VM backup and recovery
Like ESXi, XCP-NG supports enterprise-grade high availability features such as:
- Automated VM failover
- Load balancing across hosts
- Resource pooling and sharing
- Distributed virtual switching
Both hypervisors, VMware and XCP-NG provide flexible storage options:
- Support for local storage
- iSCSI and NFS integration
- Fiber Channel compatibility
- Software-defined storage capabilities
- XCP-NG Community vs Corporate Support
Any enterprise environment, particularly SMB without trained staff, needs support. XCP-NG has support offers so while the software is free to download and use without any license, if you want some help, you only have free forums. This is certainly not enough for enterprises needing 24/7. That’s why there is a dedicated support which has fairly pricing structure and adapted to small business with 3 hosts or to enterprise customers with many hosts. Details here.
ESXi now requires paid licensing for all deployments, following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware. The cost barrier to entry for ESXi makes XCP-NG particularly attractive for organizations of all sizes.
XCP-NG proves particularly valuable for:
- Small to medium-sized businesses seeking cost-effective virtualization
- Organizations prioritizing open-source solutions
- Development and testing environments
- Educational institutions and research facilities
You can use the XCP-NG software free of charge if you only be using community support.
Final Words
While VMware ESXi remains the industry standard for enterprise virtualization, XCP-NG has established itself as a capable alternative that offers comparable core functionality. Its open-source nature, combined with enterprise-grade features, makes it an attractive option for organizations looking to implement robust virtualization without the associated licensing costs.
The solution might not be for everyone as you’ll need to follow some learning curve still, but I think that in my honest opinion, you can run a viable alternative to VMware vSphere especially if you’re not using all the high-end features of VMware, with products such as VMware NSX or VSAN which are part of the VMware VCF bundle now.
XCP-NG is not the only one open-source alternative out there but has a good chance to be used more and more in education, small business or other places. Especially now when Broadcom phased out education licensing discounts.
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