The Xen.org community, creator of the open source Xen hypervisor, is hosting our North American Xen Summit event this February 24 - 25, 2009 at Oracle's HQ in Redwood City, CA. This event brings together developers, users, and researchers of the Xen hypervisor for a 2 day conference on all things Xen.  The topic abstracts are now available for review with the final agenda to be published later this week at http://www.xen.org/community/xensummit.html. Some of the speakers at this event include:

•    Ian Pratt -  Project Leader of Xen.org
•    Keir Fraser - "Gatekeeper of Xen.org"
•    Dan Magenheimer - Xen guru of memory form Oracle
•    Jeremy Fitzhardinge -  PVOPS Xen master (includes a demo!)
•    Eddie Dong -  Status of SR-IOV from Intel
•    Ben Serebrin -  Cross-vendor migration from AMD
•    Andrew Warfield - Dual Citizen of Citrix &  Univ of British Columbia
•    Chuck Yoo - Korea University on Real-Time VMM
•    Many others...

Even if you have never participated in the Xen.org community, I strongly encourage you to consider attending this event. As an open event, you will have the opportunity to learn first hand what the Xen community is planning for future releases, what researchers are doing with Xen to enable future industry trends, and how users are leveraging the powerful Xen hypervisor to solve critical and complex problems. For Citrix XenSever customers, this event provides a glimpse into the "behind the scenes" efforts for the Xen platform that supports the XenServer product family.

Registration is only $215 including a great Xen Summit jacket, evening out at the Computer History Museum, and the chance to mingle with the Xen community. Registration is at https://www.regonline.com/xs_oracle. 

I look forward to seeing everyone later this month for Xen Summit North America at Oracle 2009.

A pivotal part of Project Independence is the technology at its core.  An obvious choice for Citrix, and many other virtualization companies, is to select the Xen open-source technology as the basis for a bare-metal hypervisor.  The wonderful thing about having Xen at the core of the hypervisor is that Citrix,  undeniably the experts in Xen, has teamed with Intel, undeniably the experts in hardware virtualization, to build the core client hypervisor.  This is the best recipe for success that I've ever seen.

The Intel and Citrix collaboration, known as Thunder Lake, is  a joint program intended to bring many proven server based virtualization technologies to Intel vPro client desktops and laptops.  At the heart of the Citrix client hypervisor is open source Xen with its architecture that is uniquely designed to ensure strong isolation between VMs running on a single device.  Several key Intel technologies like VTx, VTd, TXT, and TPM will be leveraged by the Xen hypervisor such that Citrix products and technologies can bring features previously found only on server based solutions to the client platform with full local execution.  For example, since Xen is the most up to date technology using Intel's VTd hardware, it is well suited to pass through device control directly to the client in a way that doesn't impact security.  Hypervisor features like Xen's support for VTd will solve some very tough problems for client virtualization.

A key requirement for a client hypervisor is a seamless user experience.  This is one of the main differences from a server-based hypervisor.  To accomplish this, hardware devices like Graphics and USB perform just like they do today but now on a platform running multiple VMs - all this without compromising security.  On the Xen client hypervisor you will get full 3D graphics, including Vista Aero, all the while maintaining full isolation between VM's.  This ensures that the corporate applications and desktops are safe from vulnerabilities that could copy your display and keystrokes.      

Today, Xen offers excellent isolation between VMs.  With our new client hypervisor, security will be enhanced even beyond today's standards.  By incorporating encryption and support for Intel's TXT technologies the Citrix client hypervisor will check and measure the boot process.  Now data and OS are safe even if client platform has been compromised by removing the disk.

The exciting thing for us at Citrix is that Project Independence along with the Intel joint collaboration project will bring leading edge hardware and software technologies together for the distinct purpose of providing a better end user experience and better security.  For years it seems an improvement in security meant a decrease in user experience or performance.  More than ever most of us are PC users and soon we will be able to own and control our Desktop and therefore be in control of our experience and productivity.

 Matt

One of the most requested features from Service Providers and Enterprises is IP Address Management (IPAM). I can't tell you how many times I have listened to customers ask for a platform that manages IP Addresses effectively on a large scale, even to the point of managing disparate classes and subnets. What happens when two companies merge, do you munge spreadsheets or do you have this software yet? It's not only the software that is unique but that it runs as a XenServer VM in Para-Virtualized mode, meaning it is high-performance. Even better is these run in linux.

Nixu Software specializes in software designed for DNS, DHCP and IP address management. To run Nixu Products in a virtual machine environment, simply download the ISO installation media from their website and boot up a new virtual machine. The installation media auto-installs the entire server stack.

Unlike traditional computing appliances that require specific hardware to run on, Nixu Products provide a quick and cost-efficient way to migrate and consolidate core network services such as DNS and DHCP to virtualized computing environments. By streamlining tedious network and system management routines, Nixu Products offer exceptional availability and ROI.

Here are some of the Highlights of using NIXU DNS and DHCP in a XenServer VM:

• Centralized IP Address Management
  • Merge/Join IP Blocks
  • Split IP Blocks
  • Subnets in use – report
  • Subnets free – report
  • Addresses in use – report
  • Addresses free – report

• Runs in XenServer as a VM, optimized for Para-Virtualization
  • Supports pv-ops

• Supports IPv6
• Uses secure communication between secondary name servers, using keys
• Role based administration
  • Assign subnets to administrative domains

• Supports BIND syntax
  • For the BIND junkies

• Has a configuration checker
• Automated installation and maintenance reducing management overhead
• Centralized management of all nameservers
• Hardened design for security

WATCH this video tip:

Download the Nixu / XenServer Integration Guide.

Read about Nixu Software here.

Download Nixu Software here.

Read about Citrix XenServer 5.0 here.

Download Citrix XenServer 5.0 here.

Tap into the power of AppExpert!

Nothing like seeing a product in action...

I could crank out dozen of posts but they would all be very superficial until I could actually show you guys this solution in action.

Instead of going down the written path alluding to the product's functionality, I will share with you a couple of demos showing some of the gained functionalities when OEMing the Xen hypervisor within the Dell PowerEdge servers.

Check out these two demos from XenSource.com:

Fast Virtual Machine Cloning Demo

Hot Add/Remove Resources Demo



cheers,

Gus Pinto
Follow Me

This part we will understand more about the OEM relationship between Citrix and Dell including factory integration with Dell PowerEdge servers and OpenManage Systems Management software.

Instead of typing it away, I will share a video where Simon Crosby elaborates on this topic.

cheers,
Gus Pinto

Simon Crosby, the Chief Technology Officer of the Virtualization and Management Division of Citrix, participates in a recurring podcast with Virtual Strategy Magazine called "10 Minutes to Xen".

Here is a list of the topics discussed in the most recent edition -

You can listen the full podcast here.

Want to Hear directly from top virtualization executives about how the value of Citrix and Microsoft solutions can benefit you today and into the future?

Well, now here's your chance!

Virtualization of applications, desktops and servers represents an exciting new frontier for IT. Join Citrix® and Microsoft® to learn how their combined forces offer the leading virtualization solution that is highly interoperable, transforms your data center into a delivery center, and lowers costs. Citrix's new server virtualization technology and next-gen Windows® and desktop virtualization offerings and the new Microsoft Windows Server® 2008 and Hyper-V hypervisor make an unbeatable combination that many customers are choosing as their virtualization solution today.

Hear directly from top virtualization executives from both companies about how the value of Citrix and Microsoft solutions can benefit you today and into the future.

Find out what the buzz is all about!

Register now. Seating is limited.

Event Date	City	State	Registration
04/16/2008 (Wednesday) 8:30 AM - 2:45 PM CST	Irving	TX
04/17/2008 (Thursday) 8:30 AM - 2:45 PM CST	Houston	TX
04/21/2008 (Monday) 8:30 AM - 12:45 PM PST	San Francisco	CA
04/22/2008 (Tuesday) 8:30 AM - 12:45 PM PDT	Irvine	CA

* Every attendee receives a Microsoft Virtualization book signed onsite by author Robert Larson!

* Win an 80GB Zune! [1 winner per city; must complete evaluation form to enter drawing]

Ian Pratt, one of the founders of the Xen Project, recently gave an inteview at FOSDEM.org about his recent talk at the FOSDEM 2008 conference. FOSDEM is the Free and Open Source Developers European Meeting.
 Here are a few snippets from the interview.

FOSDEM.org site

While looking at the referring sites in the blog metrics for an earlier post,I just came across a site for a new Xen book  called "Running Xen". This book is written by a member of the faculty (Jeanna Neefe Matthews) and several grad students (including a current IBMer) at Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY. The book is primarily focused on the open source hypervisor, but there is additional content on Citrix XenServer as well.

Here is a description of the book from the website -

Here is the chapter list from the site -

The Running Xen web site has a page with multiple sites where the book can be purchased here. If you get the book and read it (or already have) I would love to hear your feedback in the comments.

For all you super technical people out there looking for a great explanation of how the Xen Hypervisor works and was designed, I highly recommend getting the following book: The Definitive Guide to the Xen Hypervisor by David Chisnall. I bought it from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Hypervisor-Prentice-Software-Development/dp/013234971X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199980643&sr=8-1

I get no kickback on the order but thought people who wanted to really understand the Xen Hypervisor and how it works would like the information.  

CIO Magazine recently did a story entitled "10 Virtualization Vendors to Watch in 2008". This story focuses on up and coming vendors who add significant value to the virtualization stack.

I am very familiar with some of these companies, and others I only have heard of in passing. I did some research on each to ensure I am up to date. I would like to share what I found on each in the blog. I will do one post on each of the ten.

The first company on the CIO Magazine list is Cirba.

Cirba has an interesting product for helping an IT team determine plan a new server consolidation or move to server consolidation (or both). Here is a overview from their site -

I found a flash product overview on their site - View it here.

There was a podcast earlier this year on the Virtual Strategy Magazine site with Andrew Hiller from Cirba.

Here is a summary of the discussion -

This article from SearchServerVirtualization.com highlights the problem Cirba's Data Center Intelligence software solves -

David Marshall of VMBlog.com points out many of the accolades Cirba has received -

I was intrigued by the demo I saw of the Cirba DCI tool, and I can certainly see that value in doing such detailed analysis before a server consolidation and virtulization project.

Next up on the list is VizionCore. I will post that info later this week.

Simon Crosby, the Chief Technology Officer of the Virtualization and Management Division of Citrix, recently did a podcast with Virtual Strategy Magazine called "10 Minutes to Xen". Here is a list of the topics discussed -

For those of you running Citrix Presentation Server, Simon mentions in this podcast that the plan for the next release of Citrix XenServer is to included some CPS specific optimizations. I am gathering more background info on this topic, and will post on more on these CPS optimizations later. 

http://www.virtual-strategy.com/article/articleview/2439/1/73/

This week, Simon also did an interview with Information Week entitled "Virtualization's Crusader". Here are a few excerpts -

Read more here

Simon also did a recent interview with DataMation

Here are a few excepts -

For further background on the Xen open source hypervisor and the industry wide participation in that project, see my earlier posts here and here .

I have received a lot of questions about the relationship between Microsoft, XenSource, and Viridian. The two companies announced several agreement well before the Citrix acquisition of XenSource. Here are some excepts from the Microsoft press release from July of 2006-

Here is a bit from the original XenSource published FAQ on the Microsoft agreement from July 2006 -

The Xen open source hypervisor project is a vibrant growing community with a new Advisory Board with wide industry participation. Citrix XenServer benefits from the creativity and innovation of this effort.

The Microsoft Hyper-V release is built on a structure very similar to that of the Xen hypervisor. This architecture gives Microsoft a strong architectural standing for the future, and gives Citrix the opportunity to take all the lessons we have learned from supporting that architecture and apply those lessons to building valuable management products on top of Hyper-V. This is very similar to the current relation Citrix has with Microsoft in respect to Terminal Services and Citrix Presentation Server. Citrix can draw upon our many years of experience of building value on top of a Microsoft platform and working closely with Microsoft to do it.

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In my blog post from the Xen Summit, I promised to follow up on the Xen Summit once the presentations were posted. Those presentations are now available on Xen.org. Here is a list of the presentations -

Introductory Comments and Xen Status/Roadmaps

Ian Pratt (Citrix, Cambridge), Project Status and Organization

Keir Fraser (Citrix, Cambridge), Roadmap and Releases

Xen Community: A Sampling of Status and Roadmaps

Todd Clayton (Sun), OpenSolaris, Xen and the xVM Project

Clyde Griffin (Novell), Novell Xen Roadmap

Jeremy Fitzhardinge (Citrix, Cambridge), Linux parvirtops status

Aron Griffix (HP), IA64 Update

Add One-half Xen and Stir Briskly

Mick Jordan (Sun), JavaGuest

Gerd Hoffman (Red Hat), Introducing Xenner (Abstract Only Available)

John Zulauf (Intel), Xen Extensions to Enable Modular/3P Device Emulation for HVM

Daniel Berrange(Red Hat), Directions for development & integration of Xen and QEMU

CPUs updates, scheduling, mobile

Tom Woller (AMD), AMD Update

Jun Nakajima (Intel), Intel Update

Scott Rixner (Rice University), Scheduling Pitfalls for I/O-intensive Guests

Sang-bum Suh, Secure Xen on ARM

Xen Networking

Greg Law (SolarFlare), The Convergence of Storage and Server Virtualization

Jose Renato Santos (HP), Netchannel2: Improving Xen Networking Performance

David Edmondson (Sun), OpenSolaris xVM Network Architecture

Xen Memory and Storage

Grzegorz Milos (Cambridge), Memory CoW in Xen

Hitoshi Matsumoto (Fujitsu), SCSI Support Status

Dutch T. Meyer (University of British Columbia), Parallax, A VM Storage Infrastruture

Xen Security

Vedvyas Shanbhogue(Intel), VIS:Virtualization-based Integrity Services

Derek Murray (University of Cambridge), Improving Xen security through domain-zero disaggregation

Joseph Cihula (Intel), Trusted Boot - Verifying the Xen Launch

Xen Deployment

Roman Marxer (Google) - A Xen Based High Availability Cluster)

Dave Lively (Virtual Iron), Running Xen Diskless

Brendan Cully (University of British Columbia), High Speed Checkpointing for High Availability

Donald Dugger (Intel), Updating Xen for the Client Environment

Padmashree K Apparao(Intel), Characterization and Analysis of a Server Consolidation Benchmark

Frank Martin (Oracle), Virtualization of Enterprise DataCenters Using Xen

As you can see from this list, there is wide industry participation in the Xen hypervisor open source project. In this Xen Summit alone there were six presentations from Intel, three presentations from Sun and Red Hat, and two from HP and three from Citrix. In the Spring 2007 Xen Summit, there were eight presentations by IBM, three presentations by HP, two presentations by AMD, three by Red Hat, and seven by XenSource/Citrix. The Xen Open Source hypervisor is pulling in the creativity, innovation, knowledge and experience of a wide range of industry heavyweights. This effort is completely focused on building a highly scalable, stable and a powerful 64 bit virtualization engine.

I will be blogging about some of the individual presentations form the Fall 2007 Xen Summit later.

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Rick Vanover of SearchServerVirtualization.com wrote a post called "Why You Must Evaluate Citrix XenServer" -

Rick later writes -

You can download Citrix XenServer Express Edition for free here.

Here is a graphic that shows the capabilities between the different versions of XenServer -




With XenServer Express, you can start your evaluation quickly and easily.

If you want an overview of XenServer before you start your evaluation, check out this XenServer Mini-Product Training post. 

Doug Brown of DABCC.com put together a Citrix XenServer overview video as part of his new DABCC TV. Doug goes through rthe virtualization capabilities of the Xen Hypervisor and Citrix XenServer with Chas Setchell of 2Virtualize.com . I will be bloggin more about this video later.

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Between the Thanksgiving holiday and the migration to the new blog site on Citrix.com, I have fallen a bit behind on posting iForum videos with alliance partners. Here is the next one - DataCore Software. I haven't yet had any personal experience with DataCore Software, but I have heard very good things about it. It is ironic that I haven't, since their headquarters is about a block from the Citrix HQ in Ft. Lauderdale.

Virtual Strategy Magazine does this interview with George Teixeira, the CEO and Co-Founder of DataCore. George says during the interview "One of the big things we've got is a low cost entry point $1000 SAN that allows them to basically take any pc and transform it into a storage server to support XenDesktop and XenServer as well the Citrix platform." A $1000 SAN definitely piques my interest.

I found this video on their website that covers their overall solution.

I also found this podcast from David Marshall of Infoworld that covers DataCore (and DevonIT) from iForum.

According to this white paper from the Taneja Group "DataCore is the Perfect Compliment to Virtualized Server Infrastructure". I am going to work on getting some more technical info directly from DataCore and post it to the blog.

I would like to hear from any users of DataCore Software to get their opinion and hands on experiences with the software.

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The webinar entitled Making the Business Case for Virtualization It Not Just For Server Consolidation Anymoreis today at 12 noon EST.

UPDATE: If you missed the webinar, you can still watch the recording of the entire presentation at the link. Click on the link above, go through the short registration, and the click on the link to view the archived webinar.

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After my previous post on the XenServer 4 Mini-Product training , I have received some questions on the differences between XenEnterprise v3 and XenServer Enterprise v4.

Here is some background info on the differences between XenEnterprise v3 and XenServer Enterprise v4.

What New In Citrix XenServer v4?

XenMotion

Seamlessly move virtual machines between servers without downtime.

XenCenter

Unified virtualization management interface, including server, storage, and networking.

Native 64 bit Hypervisor

Scalability and support for enterprise applications

Resource Pools

Efficient configuration, allocation, and authentication for virtualization resources.

XenAPI

Integration with existing management investments, infrastructure and processes.

Here is some background on upgrading to XenServer Enterprise v4 - Upgrading to Citrix XenServer v4

I upgrade from your 3.2 products to your 4.0 product?

Yes, you can upgrade a 3.2 system to 4.0. Simply insert the 4.0 installation CD in your system and boot. When you run the installation process, it will discover your existing 3.2 installation and ask if you want to upgrade it.

Can I upgrade from your 3.1 products to your 4.0 product?

Yes, you can upgrade a 3.1 system to 4.0, but not directly. First you must upgrade your 3.1 system to the latest 3.x release, which is version 3.2. Insert the 3.2 installation CD in your system and boot. When you run the installation process for 3.2, it will discover your existing 3.1 installation and ask if you want to upgrade it. Once your system has been upgraded to 3.2, you can upgrade to the 4.0 release following the instructions in the 3.2 to 4.0 upgrade process.

Can I upgrade from your 3.0 product right to 4.0?

No, you will need to move your 3.0 virtual machines over to a 3.1 system. Once you are on the 3.1 version, you can upgrade the same system to 3.2, leaving your virtual machines and their settings intact. You can then upgrade from 3.2 to the 4.0 release.

Can the XenCenter client connect to XenSource 3.x servers?

No, the XenCenter client cannot connect to older XenSource 3.x servers.

Moving Between XenServer v4 Editions -

Moving Between XenServer v4 Products

Is there an upgrade path from XenExpress to XenServer?

Yes, you can take an existing XenExpress install and simply add a new license key which turns that instance into a XenServer instance.

Is there an upgrade path from XenExpress to XenEnterprise?

Yes, you can take an existing XenExpress install and simply add a new license key which turns that instance into a XenEnterprise instance.

Is there an upgrade path from XenServer to XenEnterprise?

Yes, you can take an existing XenServer install and simply add a new license key which turns that instance into a XenEnterprise instance.

Can virtual machines exported from XenExpress, XenServer, or XenEnterprise be moved between the product offerings?

Yes, virtual machines from any of our three commercial products are compatible with each other.

New in Citrix XenServer v4 Recorded Demo -

Here is a link to a recorded webinar by Peter Blum that covers the new features in XenServer v4.

Whats New in V4 XenEnterprise

Finally, here is some info on how to convert existing virtual machine built with a different hypervisor to a Xen virtual machine.

VM Conversion from other hypervisors and virtual machine monitors

Can you convert a virtual machine from other virtualization products to your products?

Yes, XenSource provides a free VM conversion tool that allows you to convert existing VMWare and Microsoft VMs to the XenSource import format. You can download the VM conversion tool from the link below.

http://tx.downloads.xensource.com/products/v2xva/index.php

You can also use products from Leostream and Platespin to convert other vendor virtual machines to be usable on a XenSource server.

Can you convert a virtual machine from Open Source Xen to your products?

There is currently no automated mechanism to move VMs from open source Xen to the XenSource commercial products. In a future release the OVA (open virtual appliance) format will allow VMs to be moved between different Xen environments.

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Peter Blum from the Citrix XenServer team put together a short (37 minutes) product training for XenServer and recorded it using Camtasia. Below the info on the video, I have posted some info on the hardware support for Citrix XenServer (Processors, memory, storage, network) as well as the virtual machine limitations.

In this video, Peter covers the following topics -

1.Setting up Xen Enterprise and Xen Center.
2.Creating resource pool.
3.Attaching the remote storage.
4.Creating VM
5.Using some of the features in the product.

You can watch (and listen) to this mini product training here.

After you watch the XenServer training video, you may to read about the specific new features in XenServer v4 in this post. 

If you would like to go through a quick install yourself, you can download XenServer Express Edition for free. Once you have the code downloaded, it takes about 10 minutes to Xen

Here are some background requirements for installing Citrix XenServer -

Hardware Support

Do I need a system with a 64bit x86 processor to run your software?

Yes, our products require a 64bit x86 processor.

Can I run your server software on a system with a 32bit processor?

No, our virtualization server software cannot be run on a 32bit processor based system. You can however run the Linux P2V capture tool and our XenCenter Management Client on a 32bit system.

Do I need a system with hardware virtualization support for running Linux operating systems?

You can currently run all of our supported Linux guests on a 64bit x86 system without the need for hardware virtualization support.

NOTE In previous releases a system with hardware virtualization support was required to do the initial installation of the latest Linux releases. This is no longer the case.

Do I need a system with hardware virtualization support for running Windows operating systems?

Yes, to run Windows operating systems you will need a 64bit x86 CPU based system that supports Intel VT or AMD-V hardware virtualization technology in the CPU and BIOS.

What is required to run Windows virtual machines?

To run Windows operating systems you will need a system with a 64bit x86 system that supports AMD-V or Intel VT hardware virtualization technology in the CPU and BIOS.

Which Intel VT processors do you recommend for running Citrix XenServer products?

We recommend the following Intel VT CPUs:

* Intel Xeon 51xx series processors (Dual-Core)
* Intel Xeon 53xx series processors (Quad-Core)
* Intel Xeon 71xx series processors (Dual-Core)
* Intel Xeon 30xx series processors (Dual-Core)
* Intel Xeon 32xx series processors (Quad-Core)

Can I use other Intel VT processors with the Citrix XenServer products?

Yes, other 64bit Intel processors including the Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors contain VT technology and should work with the Citrix XenServer products. You can find a list of 64bit VT-enabled processors on the Intel website. Also be sure to check with your system vendor to make sure you BIOS supports Intel VT.

Which AMD-V processors do you recommend for running the Citrix XenServer products?

We recommend the followingAMD-V CPUs:

* AMD Opteron 12xx series processors
* AMD Opteron 22xx series processors
* AMD Opteron 82xx series processors

Can I use other AMD-V processors with the Citrix XenServer products?

Yes, many other 64bit AMD processors contain the AMD-V technology and should work with our products. You can find a list of AMD-V-enabled processors on the AMD website. Also be sure to check with your system vendor to make sure you BIOS supports AMD-V.

AMD Sempron processors do not currently contain AMD-V technology.

Can your products run on a 64bit Intel VT or AMD-V laptop system?

Yes, the products can be run on 64bit laptops for demonstration purposes, but we recommend running on a server system for production use.

Can your products run on a 64bit Intel VT or AMD-V desktop system?

Yes, the products can be run on 64bit desktop systems, but we recommend running on a server system for production use.

What does the AMD-V and Intel VT technology do?

The hardware virtualization technology from AMD and Intel allow Xen to efficiently handle certain virtualization-unsafe x86 instructions that a virtual machine may call during its normal course of operation. In first-generation virtualization systems, complex software layers must watch all executing machine code to rewrite unsafe x86 instructions on the fly. The Intel VT and AMD-V technology intercept these unsafe instructions and pass control to the Xen hypervisor to return a valid response to the virtual machine without a complex and performance-hindering layer of software.

You should check with your system supplier to determine if your system has Intel VT technology. Generally, systems with Intel VT will have an option to turn on Intel Virtualization Technology in the BIOS under Processor, CPU, or Advanced Configuration menus.

In addition, the first part of the Citrix XenServer product installer performs a check on your system that alerts you if Intel VT technology is not detected before making and changes to your server.

How can I tell if my AMD based system has AMD-V Technology?

You should check with your system supplier to determine if you system has AMD-V technology. A good rule of thumb is that AMD processors that support DDR2 memory have the AMD-V technology.

In addition, the first part of the Citrix XenServer product installer performs a check on your system that alerts you if AMD-V technology is not detected.

Do your products support dual-core or higher core processors?

Yes our products support multi-core processors, including quad-core processors from both AMD and Intel.

Memory Support

Do your products support memory sharing between VMs?

Xen and the Citrix XenServer family of products do not currently support memory sharing. Sharing memory between virtual machines imposes a performance penalty on VM memory operations. Generally you don see much savings from memory sharing in other products, since the operating system and applications don use most of the memory on a system. The data and file caches which are unique per VM use most of the memory which can be shared.

Do your commercial products support memory ballooning?

The core Xen technology currently supports memory ballooning and this capability will be included in our commercial products in a future release.

What is the maximum amount of memory that your products can use on a physical server system?

XenServer Enterprise is based on the 64bit version of Xen, which allows it to use up to 128GB of physical memory.

XenServer is also based on the 64bit version of Xen which allows it to use up to 128GB of physical memory.

Storage Support

What types of local storage can be used with your products?

All three Citrix XenServer products support IDE/PATA, Serial ATA (SATA), SCSI, and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)

What types of non-shared remote storage can be used with your products?

The following forms of non-shared remote storage can be used:

* Hardware FC: Connections to storage area networks via fiber channel HBA from Emulex and QLogic.
*

Hardware iSCSI: iSCSI storage connections made with a hardware iSCSI adapter

The following forms of -shared remote storage can be used:

* Software iSCSI: iSCSI storage connections made with our built in software iSCSI initiator
*

NFS: NFS storage connections made with our built in NFS client.

What products support shared remote storage?

Shared remote storage is only available in our XenServer Enterprise product.

What products support non-shared remote storage and local storage?

All of the Citrix XenServer Family of Products support non-shared remote storage and local storage.

What is the difference between remote storage that is shared and non-shared?

Non-shared remote storage (such as FC SAN or an iSCSI SAN via hardware iSCSI adapters) can be used with our product, but will act like locally attached disk. When virtual machines are stored on non-shared remote storage, they cannot be live relocated between systems, they also cannot be automatically placed on other servers when they are started. With non-shared storage, the VMs on that storage can only be seen by one virtualization server.

Shared remote storage (such as connections to an iSCSI SAN via our built in software initiator or our NFS client) allow a VM to be accessed by multiple virtualization servers. This allows for VMs to be XenMotioned between systems. It also allows for automatic placement of virtual machines as they are started.

Do your products support software iSCSI?

Yes, we include a software iSCSI initiator with the product. We use the open-iSCSI initiator. Our Software iSCSI initiator can be used for remote connections to shared remote storage.

Do your products support hardware iSCSI adapters?

Yes, we support using the QLogic 405X series of iSCSI HBAs for remote connections to non-shared remote storage.

Do your products support NFS based storage?

Yes, XenServer Enterprise supports NFS based shared remote storage.

Can I use a regular software NFS share from a general purpose server with your XenServer Enterprise product for remote shared storage?

While you can use a regular NFS share from a general purpose server, we highly recommend using a hardware NFS appliance for proper levels of performance. We recommend that a hardware NFS appliance with high speed non-volatile caching be used (for example, Network Appliance Filers).

Can I boot your products from an iSCSI based SAN?

We don currently support booting the product from an iSCSI-based SAN.

Can I boot your products from a fiber channel SAN?

Yes, the products support boot from SAN with Emulex and QLogic HBAs that have boot from SAN capabilities.

Do your products support multipathing for fiber channel SAN?

Our products do not currently support multipathing for fiber channel SANs. Dynamic Multipathing support is planned for a future release.

Do your products support shared storage between systems?

XenServer Enterprise includes shared storage technology for Software iSCSI and NFS.

Does your products support using raw disk?

Yes, our products use LVM technology to create a storage repository which contains one or more disks or LUNs. This storage repository is then split up automatically to create virtual disk drives for the XenVMs. Note that the virtual machine will see a virtual disk drive, not the raw disk.

Do the Citrix XenServer products support virtual disk formats such as VHD?

When using remote shared NFS storage, XenServer Enterprise will storage virtual hard disks in the Microsoft VHD format. We also have a converter tool that allows you to convert a VHD (Microsoft Format) or VMDK (VMWare format) VM to our VM import format.

Does your product support software RAID?

Yes, the product allows the use of the Linux mdadm tools to create software RAID volumes. A technote on setting up software RAID can be found in the Citrix XenServer Knowledge Base. We generally recommend that you use a true hardware RAID solution for the best system performance.

Does your product support hardware RAID?

Yes, the product supports using standard hardware RAID controllers that are included with OEM systems. We also recommend 3Ware and Areca controllers for 3rd party RAID controllers. You can find a complete list of adapters on our online HCL. Our HCL can be found at http://hcl.xensource.com

Does your product support HostRAID or FakeRAID hardware/software RAID solutions?

No, our product does not currently support using lower end hardware/software HostRAID or FakeRAID solutions. We recommend using true hardware RAID controllers with our products.

Do your products support thin clones of existing virtual machines?

Yes, XenServer Enterprise, when using remote NFS shared storage or local storage with VHD-based VMs, supports thin-cloning of an existing VM template. Thin cloning allows you to create copies from a virtual machine template with minimal disk space usage. The original VM template is used as a base read-only disk, and any copies you create from this template will only require disk space to store differences in your newly created virtual machine.

Thin cloning also allows you to create new VMs very quickly. Since you don need to copy and virtual disk drives, new VMs can be created in only seconds.

Do your products support fast cloning of existing virtual machines?

Yes, XenServer Enterprise, when using remote NFS shared storage or local storage with VHD-based VMs, supports fast cloning of existing virtual machine templates. The original VM template is used as a base read-only disk, and any copies you create from this template will only require a small virtual disk drive to track changes. This allows XenServer Enterprise to create new VMs in only seconds.

Do your products provide disk snapshot support?

Virtual disk snapshotting will be provided in a future release.

Do your products support AoE (ATA over Ethernet)?

No, our products do not currently support AoE based storage.

Networking Support

Do your products support virtual networks that only operate between VMs?

Yes, administrators can create virtual networks that connect VMs running on the same physical system together over an internal virtual network.

Do your products support multiple physical networks?

Yes, administrator can create multiple physical networks that attach to NICs on the physical system.

Can VMs connect to multiple networks?

Yes, VMs are able to connect to multiple virtual and physical networks.

Do your products support single VLANs to a physical NIC?

Yes, the networking system allows the use of VLANs that connect to physical network interfaces on the physical box. In this setup one VLAN is connected to each physical NIC on the box.

Do your products support multiple VLANs to a physical NIC?

Yes, when using XenServer Enterprise the networking system allows splitting multiple VLANs on a single physical link into multiple virtual network switches.

Do your virtual networks pass all packets to all VMs?

No, our virtual networks act like a layer 2 switch. The virtual machines will only see traffic designated for that virtual machine.

Can I put the virtual NICs and networks into promiscuous mode?

Yes, you can put a virtual NIC into promiscuous mode to see all traffic on a virtual switch. Please search our knowledge base for the details.

Do your products support bonding or teaming of physical NICs?

This feature is planned for a future release.

Product Limits

What is the maximum amount of memory that your products can use on a system?

XenServer Enterprise is based on the 64bit version of Xen which allows it to use up to 128GB of physical memory.

XenServer Standard is also based on the 64bit version of Xen which allows it to use up to 128GB of physical memory.

XenServer Express is also based on the 64bit version of Xen but is limited to using up to 4GB of physical memory.

How many processors can your products use?

XenServer Enterprise can use up to 32 physical CPU sockets with up to 32 CPU cores.

XenServer Standard can use up to 32 physical CPU sockets with up to 32 CPU cores.

XenServer Express can use up to 2 physical CPU sockets with up to 8 CPU cores.

XenServer Enterprise and XenServer Standard support running up to 50 virtual machines per server at the same time. Keep in mind that the actual maximum number of VMs that can be run per server is generally bound by the amount of memory on the box and the memory requirements for your virtual machines.

XenServer Express supports running up to 4 virtual machines at the same time.

How many virtual machines can be created on your products?

We don currently limit the number of virtual machines that can be created on our products. We do have limits on the number of simultaneous virtual machines that can be active and running at the same time.

How many physical NICs do your products support?

All three products support up to 4 physical network interfaces.

Virtual Machine Limitations

How many virtual machines can run per server on your products?

XenServer Enterprise and XenServer Standard support running up to 50 virtual machines per server at the same time.

XenServer Express supports running up to 4 virtual machines per server at the same time.

How many virtual CPUs can you allocate to a virtual machine?

Linux and Windows VMs can use up to 8 virtual CPUs.

How much memory can you allocate to a virtual machine?

XenServer Enterprise and XenServer Standard allow that

a Linux VM can use up to 32GB of memory

a Windows VM can use up to 32GB

XenExpress allows a VM to use up to 4GB of memory

How many virtual disk drives can be allocated to a virtual machine?

A virtual machine can be allocated up to 7 virtual disk drives. This number also includes a virtual DVD-ROM device.

How many virtual disk drives can be allocated to a virtual machine?

A virtual machine can be allocated up to 7 virtual network interfaces.

I found a link that provides a list of all the actual systems, storage, components, and drivers that have been tested with XenServer. You can find it at this link -[ Hardware Compatibility for Citrix XenServer|http://hcl.xensource.com/] .

I will post more technical background info on the Citrix XenServer product line over the next few days. If you there is some specific information you would like to see, please post it in the comments.

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After my earlier blog post on the Best of VMWorld solution for high availability offered by Marathon Technologies, I have received numerous questions about the solution offered by Marathon Technologies specifically for XenServer. Jerry Melnick, the CTO of Marathon, graciously agreed to provide some background info on Marathon Technologies and answer a few other questions.

Barry Flanagan: Many Citrix customers may not be familiar with Marathon Technologies. Can you give us a brief history?

Jerry Melnick: Marathon was founded in 1993 by engineers responsible for developing Digital VAX FT fault tolerant systems. The team used this experience to develop the first software and networking technology that allowed multiple Wintel servers to operate as a single fault tolerant system. In 2003 the company migrated its technology to a software-only product that works with standard off-the-shelf Intel/AMD servers, unmodified Windows and standard, unmodified Windows applications.

Barry Flanagan: Your website describes everRun as Availability Software. What are the three things people show know about how your software solves the problem of unplanned downtime?

Jerry Melnick: First, we don say lightly. Our everRun software keeps critical applications available in industries where downtime equals big bucks, including process manufacturing, gaming, media and broadcasting, financial services and federal markets. We have over 1500 global customers including five of the top ten pharmaceutical manufacturers, four of the top five television networks in the US and over 1000 mid-market companies.

Second, we developed what we call our ComputeThru technology that keeps essential applications running through both network and disk I/O failures. That means they rarely, if ever, experience lost data, lost revenue, or lost productivity due to common system or network failures. And now we working closely with the Citrix to bring our proven availability software to virtual machines. Unlike existing availability solutions that add cost and complexity to the virtual environment, everRun VM is simple and reliable.

Third, everRun provides a much more simplified approach to server availability, whether they physical servers or virtual servers. It completely automates setup, configuration, fault detection and policy management. Automated setup and configuration eliminates the manual configuration other availability solutions require.

Barry Flanagan: Do you have any real world examples of companies who use your solutions?

Jerry Melnick: The world largest commodities exchange uses our software to ensure their pricing board information and order confirmation messages are always available, Wellcome Trust, the organization responsible for the sequencing of one-third of the human genome, uses everRun to guarantee high-availability of genomic data for its research users. And MAN AG, one of the Europe biggest and best truck manufacturers, uses everRun software to make sure all their employees in offices around Germany have continuous access to key applications and data. The division we work with is also a big Citrix customer. You can read about how they use everRun and Citrix software on our site.

Barry Flanagan: Do you have any numbers on the cost of downtime for specific industries?

Jerry Melnick: Here are some industry figures for key applications. Your mileage may vary.

Application Downtime Cost Per Hour
ERP 780,000
Supply Chain Management 660,000
E-Commerce 600,000
Internet Banking 420,000
Customer Service Center 220,000
Electronic Funds Transfer 210,000
Messaging/Email 60,000
Hospital Information System (avg. three hospital IDN with 1400 beds) 60,000
Hospital Information System (avg. single hospital with 500 beds) 15,840

We have an ROI calculator on our web site that can help you determine what downtime on your physical servers is costing your organization

Barry Flanagan: The November 28th webinar listed on your site talks about the Best of VMWorld approach to protecting virtual machines. How did Marathon win a Best of VMWorld award when the product is designed exclusively for Citrix XenServer?

Jerry Melnick: At VMworld, Mendel Rosenblum, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at VMware, highlighted hardware fault tolerance as one of the company three key technology initiatives. But according to Mendel, their solution is still in early development and won be out in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, we demonstrated everRun VM at the show, and we ship the industry first fault tolerant-class virtual machine software in Q1 of next year.

Barry Flanagan: What is different about this webinar? Why should someone working with virtualization technologies attend?

Jerry Melnick: Well, if you didn see the everRun VM showcase at VMworld or iForum, I be explaining how it works. IDC virtualization guru, John Humphreys, will share some real world numbers on virtualization savings based on customer surveys they conducted. And it a great opportunity to hear Simon Crosby (CTO of the Virtualization and Management Division of Citrix) talk about the new economics of server virtualization.

Barry Flanagan: What will an attendee learn from attending this webinar? Are there any takeaways?

Jerry Melnick: John will give you good guidance on how to evaluate and structure your virtualization business case for your management. We be providing attendees with a first chance to use a brand new virtualization and availability ROI calculator that will help make your case. And of course Simon will be thought-provoking as always.

UPDATE: I received pricing info back from Jerry and his team. The final pricing is not yet determined, but here is the TENTATIVE pricing info.

Marathon everRun VM integrated bundle (Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition v4 + everRun VM)

Dual socket: $4500 Quad socket: $9000

Marathon everRun VM only (for upgrading existing XenServer installations)

Dual socket: $2000 Quad socket: $4000

As stated above, this pricing is not yet written in stone.

Thanks to Jerry Melnick for answering our Seven Questions. There will be an opportunity to ask Jerry, John Humpreys and Simon Crosby more questions at the end of the webinar.

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I am sitting in the Auditorium of Bldg. #3 at the SUN Microsystems Campus in Santa Clara (by far the most impressive campus of any technology company that I have seen BTW) during a break for the Xen Summit.

There have been many very interesting presentations so far at the Xen Summit. All will be posted in the next few weeks for your review. Here are a few thoughts...

Ian Pratt, the original developer of Xen and one of the founders of XenSource, opened up with a roadmap. I missed most of this unfortunately due to a very late flight. Later, we heard from Mick Jordan from Sun Research about a completely Java based VM running on Xen called JavaGuest . Tom Woller of AMD and Jun Nakajima of Intel provided an update and road map for CPU assisted virtualization. Greg Law from SolarFlare gave a very intriguing presentation on using there 10GB Nic and their vNIC driver to greatly improve the Network and Disk I/O throughput in a Xen Environment (they show up to 3X improvement with lower CPU utilization) by directly accessing the hardware. Roman Maxer from Google talked about Ganeti, a new open source tool created by Google for high availability on open source Xen (and used on internal production systems).

I will have much more as the presentations are posted on our web site.

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