XCP-ng: A turnkey open source virtualization platform
What is XCP-ng?
XCP-ng is a virtualization platform based on Xen Source and Citrixยฎ Hypervisor (formerly XenServer). XCP-ng stands for Xen Cloud Platform - New Generation and is a tribute to the old Open Source project XCP, which was abandoned when XenServer was open-sourced in 2013.
Genesis
- 2003 : Xen project birth, first open source hypervisor
- 2007 : Xen Source Inc. acquired by Citrix, birth of XenServer (closed source)
- 2010 : Citrix strategy focused on virtual desktop (XenApp/XenDesktop) instead of server virtualization
- 2011 : XCP 1.0 (Xen Cloud Platform, Open Source XenServer)
- 2013 : XenServer becomes Open (end of XCP). Birth of Xen Orchestra
- 2017 (Dec) : Citrix changes their pricing strategy regarding XenServer and removes essential features from free XenServer versions. New features developed are (mostly) no longer open source
- 2018 (Jan) : XenServer forked, birth of XCP-ng
- 2019 (Jul): XCP-ng 8.0 is released
Key points
XCP-ng is a turnkey open source virtualization platform.
Platform
A combination of multiple components to deliver a cohesive solution
Compute + Network + Storage + API (Xen API) = XCP-ng
Open Source
XCP-ng is open source (mostly GPLv2), but also, all the components, documentation, repositories and dev process are publicly available and easily accessible.
Turnkey
- XCP-ng is intended to be easy to download and easy to install
- We are aiming to have the largest possible hardware compatibility
- XCP-ng embeds a complete API and comes with a friendly web-UI: Xen Orchestra
Documentation
We have extensive documentation for the XCP-ng project available here
Contribution and community
XCP-ng has a living community that you can join on our forum.
The project is open to contributions, bug reports and you can also host a mirror for XCP-ng
Pro support
For production environments and companies, we recommend obtaining pro support to cover your infrastructure. Pro support is delivered directly by the XCP-ng project dev team and pricing is per host, not per core!
Learn more about pro support for XCP-ng on the dedicated website.