10 Minutes to Xen

Citrix XenServer™ software is easily installed using either a CD or network based installation and it delivers the performance, security and openness of the Xen technology for x86 server virtualisation. You can then easily create an unlimited number of virtual machines. All the tools required to get virtualised right away are included.

Supports Standard Hardware and Drivers

Citrix XenServer virtual server software fully utilises the benefits of hardware assisted virtualisation on both Intel® VT platforms and AMD® Virtualisation (AMD-V™) platforms via Xen paravirtualisation. This hardware support provides exceptional performance and response times that closely rival non-virtualised speeds.

Citrix XenServer software leverages standard device drivers for broad storage and network hardware support.

Supports wide variety of local storage including IDE, SATA, SCSI, and SAS direct attached storage and more
Supports Fiber Channel based SANs with boot from SAN for diskless blades
Supports shared storage on iSCSI and Fibre Channel based SANs and NFS NAS filers

Built to Scale

Citrix XenServer is built from the ground up with 64-bit support and enterprise-class CPU and memory limits for server virtualisation. It can handle up to 32 processors and up to 128 GB of RAM, and supports up to 32GB of RAM for each virtual machine.

Windows and Linux Guest Support

Create Microsoft virtual servers and Linux virtual servers easily. All Editions (except the entry-level Express Edition) can easily handle an unrestricted number of both Windows and Linux guest operating systems. Windows support includes Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows 2000 Server. Linux support includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Oracle Enterprise Linux, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and Debian Sarge and Etch. (See the product specifications and documentation for details on exact versions supported.) Windows guests require Intel VT or AMD-V x86-based hardware.

Based on Industry-Standard Open Source Xen

Citrix XenServer is based upon the industry standard open source Xen hypervisor, the creators of which continue to enhance and maintain it at Citrix. This open source software “engine” is a proven, rapidly evolving industry standard with broad support from virtually all the major hardware and software vendors.

Blazing Fast Performance

The Citrix XenServer advanced virtualisation architecture offers near-native “bare-metal” performance on almost any 64-bit x86 server. The product’s minimal software footprint enables the full power of the system to be dedicated to running virtual machines. Optimised guest drivers provide high speed I/O for enhanced disk and network performance.

Powerful Resource Management

To guarantee that compute power is directed to the most essential workloads that require them, Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition allows administrators to set quality-of-service (QoS) priorities and levels for CPU utilisation as well as disk and network bandwidth.

XenCenter Multi-Server Multi-Pool Management

All Citrix XenServer editions include XenCentre, a powerful graphical virtualisation management interface that runs on any Windows desktop machine - no dedicated system is required to use its powerful unified management capabilities. It offers:

Management of single servers (Express Edition) or multiple servers in one session
Full lifecycle management for all your virtual machines from creation, starting and stopping, to reboot, and uninstalls
Interfaces for creating new virtual machines from original sources or from network repositories, and for cloning them from pre-configured templates for efficient buildout of virtual infrastructure
Ability to suspend and resume virtual machines on the fly
XenMotion management for live relocation
Global resource pool configuration
Integrated configuration of virtual storage repositories and networking
Real time and trended graphing of virtual machine and total server performance metrics including CPU, memory, plus disk and network I/O
Controls to adjust virtual machine resource allocation as demands change
The Citrix XenServer software also supports a powerful Command Line Interface that runs locally or remotely for easy integration with your existing tools and scripts and XenAPI for integration with management tools.

Enhanced Serviceability

Citrix XenServer makes it easy for users to collect information required to assist with support and problem resolution and to send it directly to support staff. Integrated hotfix management allows users to easily keep the software up-to-date.

Provides Rapid Efficient Provisioning for Physical & Virtual Servers

The advanced provisioning capability of Citrix XenServer makes it possible to provision and rapidly redeploy operating system and application workloads across the virtual and physical servers in the virtualised infrastructure, server consolidation yielding savings in management and storage costs through storage virtualisation while delivering the agility of the dynamic data centre.