BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer
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@JaredBusch said:
@BRRABill said:
Since I'm fairly new to the hypervisor game, I told @scottalanmiller I would give XenServer a shot before deciding on Hyper-V.
I thought it would be interesting to document this on the forum.
To start out, it was suggested that I download XenServer and install it. It's that easy, I was told, couple of clicks and a password. Of course, it wasn't that easy, and I already messed up a setting, and have to reinstall. Now, this is the kind of thing that makes me nervous.
But anyway, I did not check the "thin provision" box, so @scottalanmiller suggested a re-install. He can pipe in on why that option is there at install.
While I highly recommend Hyper-V for most SMB, it is because they are alreadyused to managing Windows stuff and it is a similar workflow.
Also, there are plenty of tricks you need to know about Hyper-V or even VMWare on install and setup. That really will not be any different no matter which one you use.For the most part a agree with this. Windows Admin already have or are aware of the tools to manage Hyper-V where as XenServer and ESXi require a new set of tools.
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Just to be clear, while I recommend setting thin provisioning for nearly all installs, running without it would not put you at risk, it would limit functionality or features and is only an issue here because we are using local storage in the test. Which, of course, I also recommend. But just saying that if there was a NAS or SAN volume that thin provisioning is part of the data store, not the installation.
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@BRRABill said:
The option that got me was...
Enable thin provisioning (Optimized storage for XenDesktop)
Figured it would have nothing to do with the XenServer install.
Yep, that got me, and at least one other person here, the first time too. I thought I could individually thin provision virtual hard disks when I created them. I like this better as it forces everything to be thin provisioned instead of ad hoc.
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@coliver said:
For the most part a agree with this. Windows Admin already have or are aware of the tools to manage Hyper-V where as XenServer and ESXi require a new set of tools.
We were discussing this offline or in another thread. I'm not so convinced that this is a broadly true as people think. Tons of Windows Admins are unfamiliar with the tools you would expect them to know for this and even ones that use those tools, often they don't use them for Hyper-V and just log in through RDP to manage it. They might be familiar with the tools (maybe) but often don't even leverage them.
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@BRRABill said:
The option that got me was...
Enable thin provisioning (Optimized storage for XenDesktop)
Figured it would have nothing to do with the XenServer install.
Yeah, I hate that wording.
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@BRRABill said:
@JaredBusch said:
While I highly recommend Hyper-V for most SMB, it is because they are alreadyused to managing Windows stuff and it is a similar workflow.
Yeah once I got into XenCenter, my first thought was .... OK, NOW what? Wither HYper-V (granted, installed as a role) I knew exactly what to do.
Make a VM? What make XenServer different? What was the trigger for one that told you to start making your first VM and the other did not?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
For the most part a agree with this. Windows Admin already have or are aware of the tools to manage Hyper-V where as XenServer and ESXi require a new set of tools.
We were discussing this offline or in another thread. I'm not so convinced that this is a broadly true as people think. Tons of Windows Admins are unfamiliar with the tools you would expect them to know for this and even ones that use those tools, often they don't use them for Hyper-V and just log in through RDP to manage it. They might be familiar with the tools (maybe) but often don't even leverage them.
I think in another thread you mentioned some fortune 500 admins who didn't know about RSAT.
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@scottalanmiller said:
We were discussing this offline or in another thread. I'm not so convinced that this is a broadly true as people think. Tons of Windows Admins are unfamiliar with the tools you would expect them to know for this and even ones that use those tools, often they don't use them for Hyper-V and just log in through RDP to manage it. They might be familiar with the tools (maybe) but often don't even leverage them.
I was using RDP and not the proper tools, I will admit.
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Not to side track this thread (apologies to @BRRABill ), what is the "hyperconverged" equivalent in the XenServer world?
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@BRRABill I may have to retract my previous statement. An admin I used to work with used to just use RDP for everything. Although it wasn't until this past year that he actually virtualized anything.
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@BRRABill said:
The option that got me was...
Enable thin provisioning (Optimized storage for XenDesktop)
Figured it would have nothing to do with the XenServer install.
This got me my first time too!
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OK, so it's back up and running.
First question:
How do I check to see if there are updates available, and if so install them? -
@BRRABill in XenCenter (or XO if you have it) the updates will be listed as Alerts to install.
Being a new install there are certainly some updates, I just got an alert to update our installation as well.
it might take a bit for the alert to generate.
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The alert feature is really nice. Be aware that the default install really doesn't have much room where it stores patches. So you may have to go in and clean up old patch files if/when that gets full.
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So for right now, there is really nothing to do. It will eventually alert me through XenCenter that updates are ready.
There is no way to force it update?
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@BRRABill said:
So for right now, there is really nothing to do. It will eventually alert me through XenCenter that updates are ready.
There is no way to force it update?
There is but it is a third party application, called patcher, that you run from the CLI.
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Back to Hyper-V! LOL, just kidding, I'll give it a chance.
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@BRRABill said:
So for right now, there is really nothing to do. It will eventually alert me through XenCenter that updates are ready.
There is no way to force it update?
right, I think that you are expecting complications and imagining that it will be hard when it is probably ready to go already. Make a VM and start to play!
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OK, next question.
How do I get a file onto my XenServer? Say I wanted to copy something over to it?
Or something I would like to try is to take my existing VHD and see if it will use it.
I get the gist I can import the VHD, but can you simply "store" stuff on the XenServer?
The equivalent in Windows of opening File Explorer and just copying a file to a folder on a drive.
Also, can it access files on a USB drive I plug in?
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You have to have an ISO repo that XS can access and boot your VM ISO from.
This could be a Windows Share or you can build a local ISO repo right into XenServer.
