The release of the new version of the project XCP-NG 8.2 has already been released, and this is an LTS version which will be receiving support and bug fixes for 5 years, so it will be supported until 2025.
For those who are unfamiliar with XCP-NG, they should know that is a project a free and free replacement for the Citrix platform is developed proprietary hypervisor (formerly called XenServer) to deploy and manage the operation of the cloud infrastructure, has taken place.
XCP-NG recreates functionality that Citrix has excluded of the free Citrix Hypervisor / Xen server since version 7.3. Supports upgrade from Citrix Hypervisor to XCP-ng, provides full Xen Orchestra support and the ability to move virtual machines from Citrix Hypervisor to XCP-ng and vice versa.
The interesting thing about using XCP-NG is that Quickly deploy a server and workstation virtualization system by providing the means to centrally manage an unlimited number of servers and virtual machines.
Among the features of the system the ability to combine multiple servers into a group is highlighted (cluster), high availability tools, support for snapshots, share shares using XenMotion technology.
In addition to that, supports live migration of virtual machines between cluster hosts and between different clusters / individual hosts (which do not have a common storage), as well as live migration of VM disks between stores. The platform can work with a large number of storage systems and is characterized by the presence of a simple and intuitive interface for installation and administration.
Main new features of XCP-ng 8.2
XCP-ng 8.2 is the first long-term support release (LTS), which will fix serious bugs, fix vulnerabilities and update some drivers for which you will train for 5 years, while the standard editions will be supported for 1 year.
XCP-ng 8.2 benefits from a long-term support offer. That means that even after this version leaves the standard release cycle (when we release XCP-ng 8.3), the LTS version will continue to benefit from updates and our professional customer support services with corresponding agreements.
However, to keep the version as stable as possible, updates will be limited to:
Security fixes
Important bug fixes
Some driver updates
The new version nor just recreate the functionality of Citrix Hypervisor 8.2, but youIt also offers several improvements, such as the UEFI support that has been completely redesigned.
The project now use native code to start guests in UEFI mode, eliminating dependency on Citrix code and minimizing the risk of a potential Citrix deployment shutdown. Citrix had previously tried to shut down code related to UEFI, but later reversed this decision.
Another important change of this new version is that the transmission of traffic information was automated using the OpenFlow protocol to the Openflow controller managed through Xen Orchestra.
Added experimental support for task scheduling relative to the CPU cores. The programmer can now group virtual vCPUs for specific VMs and run them on the same physical CPU core, thus eliminating the possibility of side channel attacks.
On the other hand, a experimental support for different storage controllers, which allows you to create storages based on the following Gluster, ZFS, XFS, and CephFS file systems. Support for these file systems XCP-ng 8.2 handles them natively (Although at the moment, as already mentioned, it is experimental).
Added support for the new Intel CPU families: Icelake and Cometlake.
In addition to the addition of the module for ZFS, it has been updated to version 0.8.5 and the implementation of the zstd algorithm has been updated to version 1.4.5.
Finally if you want to know more about it about the changes that were introduced in this new version, you can check the changes in detail In the following link.
Download
For those who are interested in trying this new version, you can find the 580 MB installation image to download In the following link.