Citrix is pleased to announce general availability of XenServer 7.6, the latest release for customers following the Current Release model. Consistent with previous releases, 7.6 CR delivers a powerful combination of highly sought-after features and significant infrastructure cost savings that enables our customers to get the most out of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.

While there are several new features in 7.6 that enhance and extend the capabilities of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, support for thin provisioning on block storage for virtual disk storage repositories and Networking SR-IOV have been eagerly anticipated by customers. Initially available as experimental features in the 7.5 CR release, Citrix expects rapid and wide implementation of these features in production environments as customers look to achieve significant savings in storage cost and capacity as well as more efficient utilization of PCI devices and improved I/O performance.

Thin Provisioning

When block storage such as iSCSI or Fibre Channel is used with XenServer, thin provisioning enables XenServer to dynamically allocate storage resources as capacity demands increase. Benefits include a dramatic reduction in storage utilization and cost as XenServer no longer reserves the entire capacity of a physical disk (i.e., LUN) for virtual disk storage repositories. Prior to this feature, disk capacity often went unused, leading to inefficient use of storage resources.

Networking SR-IOV

For customers looking to improve system I/O performance, Networking SR-IOV provides an effective alternative to traditional network virtualization methods. With Networking SR-IOV, virtual machines communicate directly with the network adapter via Direct Memory Access (DMA), enabling sharing of PCIe devices, extending device capacity, lowering hardware costs, and improving system performance.

Ensuring the highest levels of productivity while optimizing the user experience has always been a challenge for IT administrators, particularly in virtual application and desktop environments. The addition of thin provisioning and Networking SR-IOV in XenServer provides an effective way of overcoming this challenge. Together, these features reinforce the zealous efforts put forth by the XenServer team in developing new capabilities that bring out the best of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops!

Has your organization upgraded its XenServer virtual environment recently? The following list, which highlights the features introduced in releases preceding 7.6, should make the decision to upgrade to the latest LTSR (7.1 CU1) or CR release an easy one.

7.5 CR:

  • Larger Resource Pool size – XenServer now supports up to 64 hosts participating in a resource pool
  • Support for USB Pass-Through – enables physical USB devices to be passed through to a virtual machine so the guest OS can use the physical USB device as a local USB device

7.1 CU1 LTSR:

  • Automated updates — simplifies host maintenance
  • Delivering Windows VM drivers via Windows Updates (WSUS)
  • Health Check (via Citrix Insight Services) to monitor the health of XenServer hosts
  • Live-Patching — enables hosts to be updated (patched) without rebooting to minimize downtime
  • PVS-Accelerator — reduces/eliminates boot storms while dramatically improving virtual desktop performance
  • SMB storage, providing even more options for virtual disk Storage Repositories (SRs)
  • Bitdefender Hypervisor Introspection (HVI), which monitors raw memory at the hypervisor later to detect and protect virtual environments from sophisticated IT attacks (i.e., viruses, malware, ransomware and rootkit exploits)
  • Support for Nutanix — combines the benefits of a single software stack (XenApp/XenDesktop/XenServer) with the cost-effective scale and management benefits provided by hyperconverged infrastructure

For additional information pertaining to XenServer, which, along with many other Citrix products, is currently going through the rebranding process (and will soon be referred to as Citrix Hypervisor), please visit the XenServer/Citrix Hypervisor page on Citrix.com.

Until next time!
Andy