Comments on: Overcoming XenServer 5.5 snapshot limitations Part 1 http://www.thehahnspace.com/index.php/2009/08/overcoming-xenserver-5-5-snapshot-limitations-part-1/ Citrix, Vmware, Microsoft, and other Random Tech Ramblings Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:21:59 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Andrew http://www.thehahnspace.com/index.php/2009/08/overcoming-xenserver-5-5-snapshot-limitations-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-20 Andrew Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:57:21 +0000 http://www.thehahnspace.com/?p=303#comment-20 For the record, Citrix just posted a new update to XenServer (5.5. update 1), which allows you to manually reclaim the 'lost' storage space that you don't get back when you delete a snapshot. You can check this out <a href="http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX123673" rel="nofollow">here</a> Its kind of a pain to remember to run a script manually every time you trigger a snapshot, but there are already articles and tools coming out to ease this burden, like <a href="http://www.quorumsoft.com" rel="nofollow">QuorumSoft's Alike</a>, which can schedule and automate the process. Also for the record, Citrix does have a roadmap for this issue, and they expect to release a more automated solution to this problem in Q12010 or so, but seeing how long it took them to react to this problem, I'm not holding my breath for their solution to be too timely. -AHS For the record, Citrix just posted a new update to XenServer (5.5. update 1), which allows you to manually reclaim the ‘lost’ storage space that you don’t get back when you delete a snapshot. You can check this out here

Its kind of a pain to remember to run a script manually every time you trigger a snapshot, but there are already articles and tools coming out to ease this burden, like QuorumSoft’s Alike, which can schedule and automate the process.

Also for the record, Citrix does have a roadmap for this issue, and they expect to release a more automated solution to this problem in Q12010 or so, but seeing how long it took them to react to this problem, I’m not holding my breath for their solution to be too timely.

-AHS

]]> By: Andrew http://www.thehahnspace.com/index.php/2009/08/overcoming-xenserver-5-5-snapshot-limitations-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-19 Andrew Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:56:34 +0000 http://www.thehahnspace.com/?p=303#comment-19 For the record, Citrix just posted a new update to XenServer (5.5. update 1), which allows you to manually reclaim the 'lost' storage space that you don't get back when you delete a snapshot. You can check this out <a href="http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX123673" rel="nofollow">here Its kind of a pain to remember to run a script manually every time you trigger a snapshot, but there are already articles and tools coming out to ease this burden, like <a href="http://www.quorumsoft.com" rel="nofollow">QuorumSoft's Alike</a>, which can schedule and automate the process. Also for the record, Citrix does have a roadmap for this issue, and they expect to release a more automated solution to this problem in Q12010 or so, but seeing how long it took them to react to this problem, I'm not holding my breath for their solution to be too timely. -AHS For the record, Citrix just posted a new update to XenServer (5.5. update 1), which allows you to manually reclaim the ‘lost’ storage space that you don’t get back when you delete a snapshot. You can check this out here

Its kind of a pain to remember to run a script manually every time you trigger a snapshot, but there are already articles and tools coming out to ease this burden, like QuorumSoft’s Alike, which can schedule and automate the process.

Also for the record, Citrix does have a roadmap for this issue, and they expect to release a more automated solution to this problem in Q12010 or so, but seeing how long it took them to react to this problem, I’m not holding my breath for their solution to be too timely.

-AHS

]]> By: Ernie http://www.thehahnspace.com/index.php/2009/08/overcoming-xenserver-5-5-snapshot-limitations-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-16 Ernie Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:26:05 +0000 http://www.thehahnspace.com/?p=303#comment-16 I have a question that you guys can probably answer. Our SAN sales rep is also a VMWare guru. We chose XenServer to be our VMhost. I started snapshotting servers after the P2V process and now I have all this space that I wanted to free up. According to our Rep, if you delete a VMWare rep, you can screw up your original and he doesn't recomend snaps at all. He thought Xen could hose up as well. I don't understand this as he says the snaps are being written to as well as the actual running VM. That doesn't make sense to me, why make a snap if it is still going to be updated? Anyway, can I delete my snaps without hurting the original? Also, any answer to freeing the disk space after doing so? Thanks, Ernie I have a question that you guys can probably answer. Our SAN sales rep is also a VMWare guru. We chose XenServer to be our VMhost. I started snapshotting servers after the P2V process and now I have all this space that I wanted to free up. According to our Rep, if you delete a VMWare rep, you can screw up your original and he doesn’t recomend snaps at all. He thought Xen could hose up as well. I don’t understand this as he says the snaps are being written to as well as the actual running VM. That doesn’t make sense to me, why make a snap if it is still going to be updated? Anyway, can I delete my snaps without hurting the original? Also, any answer to freeing the disk space after doing so?
Thanks,
Ernie

]]> By: Eric Hnat http://www.thehahnspace.com/index.php/2009/08/overcoming-xenserver-5-5-snapshot-limitations-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-14 Eric Hnat Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:26:57 +0000 http://www.thehahnspace.com/?p=303#comment-14 Excellent article. I was very excited to see snapshot capability arrive with Xenserver 5.5, but was very disappointed to find: (1) when one upgrades to 5.5 you dont get the same snapshot efficiency as if you create a new SR on the 5.5 system. There is no migration tool for this and for us + others i talk to this is a mess as we have TB or VMS that we cannot just shutdown and "copy over" to a new SR. (2) Performance of VHD over LVM (LVHD) is supposed to be quite poor from what i have read vs native LVM. We would be interested in a comparison between Vmware filesystem + snapshot compared to Xenserver 5.5 both ease of use, disk space requirements and performance penalties. (3) I do know in Xenserver Essentials 5.5 Citrix wants you to leverage the snapshot + cloning capabilites of the SAN, but we dont all run the limited SAN list that they are compatible with. (4) VVI (Symantecs Frankenstein of Xenserver + Veritas filesystem) is supposted to be the best of both worlds with all sorts of fancy file system features integrated with Xenserver including non-stop migration of VMs between storage repositories etc. comments welcome - keep up the good work - i look forward to "part II" of your article above. rgds, Eric - Secure Technology Group LLC. Excellent article. I was very excited to see snapshot capability arrive with Xenserver 5.5, but was very disappointed to find:

(1) when one upgrades to 5.5 you dont get the same snapshot efficiency as if you create a new SR on the 5.5 system. There is no migration tool for this and for us + others i talk to this is a mess as we have TB or VMS that we cannot just shutdown and “copy over” to a new SR.

(2) Performance of VHD over LVM (LVHD) is supposed to be quite poor from what i have read vs native LVM. We would be interested in a comparison between Vmware filesystem + snapshot compared to Xenserver 5.5 both ease of use, disk space requirements and performance penalties.

(3) I do know in Xenserver Essentials 5.5 Citrix wants you to leverage the snapshot + cloning capabilites of the SAN, but we dont all run the limited SAN list that they are compatible with.

(4) VVI (Symantecs Frankenstein of Xenserver + Veritas filesystem) is supposted to be the best of both worlds with all sorts of fancy file system features integrated with Xenserver including non-stop migration of VMs between storage repositories etc.

comments welcome – keep up the good work – i look forward to “part II” of your article above.

rgds,
Eric -

Secure Technology Group LLC.

]]>