[Pkg-xen-devel] Note worthy package: XCP

Lars Kurth lars.kurth at xen.org
Wed Jan 4 17:32:59 UTC 2012


On 04/01/2012 16:19, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> The move Citrix did in the direction of opening XCP is rare enough so 
> that I believe we should advertise about it. This can push other 
> companies to do the same. I'm not 100% sure what motivated the 
> decisions. (I may or may not have contributed to it last spring, by 
> asking the disturbing questions at the good time on public lists.) The 
> fast rise of OpenStack running KVM might have pushed Citrix to release 
> XCP as packages so that Xen can continue to beat KVM in the data 
> center. Maybe Lars (he's Citrix community manager) can talk about this 
> better than I.
In a nutshell I have been driving this: I made a pitch to various 
managers that changing the distribution model of XCP and working more 
closely with Linux distributions is in the long-term interest of Xen.org 
and Citrix. It was clear to me when I started in Feb 2011 that Xen.org 
needed to focus more on its users: until recently Xen.org was very much 
a developer focused community like kernel.org. XCP distributed as an ISO 
was a first good move to make Xen more easily usable and start 
connecting to Xen users, but the ISO distribution model does not fulfill 
everybody's needs. With Xen support being re-introduced into the kernel 
and Linux distros, it just made sense to distribute XCP via distros 
rather than an ISO.

Choosing Debian as first distribution made sense because a) Debian has 
never really dropped Xen and b) it is also the parent distro for Ubuntu 
which is popular in Openstack land.

> ...dora, Ubuntu and and of course Debian. Side note: Zack, I suppose 
> that you know that XCP is written in your loved Ocaml language (which 
> I don't know enough)! Maybe when you're done with being a DPL, you may 
> contribute? :)
>> ...
>>
>> I'd therefore dare to propose something a bit more bold of what you
>> propose here (although not incompatible with it): a press release along
>> the lines of "deploy your own clouds with Debian".
I would be quite happy to support you with a Citrix and/or Xen.org 
angle. But some of this would probably need to be done outside of a 
public list.

I would also want to be sure though that SID/Wheezy + Xen + XCP + 
Openstack has been tested and we know it all works. Otherwise PR will 
just backfire.

>> I'm available to draft the more "political" part of the press release.
>> But I'm just a casual user of private clouds, hence I'd need help from
>> the Xen/OpenStack people to write the more technical parts and why they
>> matter.
>>
>> What do you think?
I am happy to help, if that helps you. I think I will be able to get a 
quote from Citrix' cloud CTO, from Ian Pratt and/or a few other senior 
staff members, if that helps you.

As an aside: I am having some Xen & Debian T-shirts and stuff made in 
celebration of XCP making it into Debian. Does anybody know, whether 
there are any constraints I need to be aware of?

Regards
Lars
P.S.: Not registered on debian-publicity at lists.debian.org : CC me




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