In an increasingly competitive landscape, Forward Systems continuously strive to deliver innovative and cost-effective solutions that meet the evolving needs of our clients.

This blog post delves into the exciting partnership between Forward Systems and Vates, the developer of XCP-ng, Xen Orchestra (XO) and a leading contributor to the Xen Project. We explore our motivations behind recommending Vates, and how it enables us to deliver unparalleled value to our clients.

Three reasons why

Organizations seeking to optimize their virtualization environments often find themselves limited by the constraints of traditional solutions. Proprietary offerings can be are expensive, complex, and may not adapt to evolving requirements.

XCP-ng and XO emerge as a compelling alternative, offering unparalleled performance, scalability, and a gentle learning curve.

1. Performance, Scalability

• The Bare-metal Advantage: XCP-ng runs directly on the host hardware and is a true type 1 hypervisor. This means less overhead and more density in your environment. It provides exceptional performance, particularly compared to Type 2 hypervisors or platforms leveraging QEMU and KVM (such as Proxmox VE or Nutanix AHV).
• Resource Efficiency: The web-based management interface, XO, is remarkably lightweight. It deploys as a VM and is independant from the host hypervisor, meaning you do not need to deploy it more that once per cluster. This philosophy is similar to that of vCenter. However, there is a key difference on resources requirements, as even with larger clusters, XO usually consummes resources 2 to 3 times lesser than required by vCenter.
• Seamless Scalability and Management: XCP-ng’s architecture scales effortlessly across hosts, clusters, datacenters, on premises and in the cloud. This is due to the integration of advanced software-defined features that greatly facilitate complex deployments: SDN / private tunnels, management proxies, software-define storage (virtual SAN aka XOSTOR), cloud-init support, etc.

The Xen Orchestra (XO) v6 management interface

2. The Open-Dource Advantage:

• Cost-effective Solution: Both XCP-ng and XO are free and open-source. You do not pay for licenses but you can subscribe for support.
• Enterprise Support comes with up to 24x7x1 SLAs and is transparent. There’s also no upcharge for subscribing through Forward Systems rather than Vates directly.
• Great Security: XCP-ng is built in Xen, arguably the most secure hypervisor on the market. Numerous military clouds are built on Xen, with major defense actors levaring its minimalist codebase. This is in part because the Xen Project prioritizes security over other aspects, where KVM-based solutions (Proxmox VE, Nutanix AHV, etc.) leverage the Linux kernel - a vastly larger attack surface that’s a lot less restrictive by design. To the contrary of closed-source solutions (such as vSphere) XCP-ng is also easily auditable - with a very small and open codebase.

3. Ease of Use and Deployment

• Seamless Migration: Migrating your infrastructure to XCP-ng is effortless and largely automated, integrating easily into your existing infrastructure without the need for a hardware refresh. We work seamlessly with your hardware schedule, be it new or existing systems.
• Feature Parity: The Vates Stack provides a complete feature set matching with VMware on all aspects you’re accustomed to, such as HA, continuous replication, software-defined storage, ACLs, and more. There’s more: whereas VMware admins have to rely on third-party tools like Veeam for backups, VM backup capabilities come standard with the Vates management stack (XO).
• Type 1 Familiarity for VMware admins: XCP-ng’s Type 1 administration philosophy delivers a familiar and intuitive experience for VMware admins, minimizing the learning curve and enabling rapid adoption.

Even the console will feel familiar ;)

In Summary

The Vates Stack provides a solid, full-featured and compelling alternative to proprietary solutions. As a trusted MSP and Vates partner, Forward Systems is dedicated to guiding organizations through the transition to this modern virtualization platform. With our expertise and proven track record, we ensure you leverage the full potential of XCP-ng and XO, driving innovation and propelling your business forward.

We invite you to reach out for a deeper dive into your specific requirements and to explore the benefits of XCP-ng and XO through a personalized demo: [email protected]