XenServer 6.0Workshop

Christian FerberSystems Engineer Datacenter & CloudServer Virtualization

• General Enhancements

• Workload Balancing

• StorageLink

• High Availability / Site Recovery

• IaaS Cloud Improvements

• Microsoft SCVMM and SCOM Support

• Optimized for XenDesktop

Agenda

General Enhancements

• Installation, upgrade and management of a XenServerenvironment has been drastically simplified• Integrated StorageLink

• Workload Balancing Virtual Appliance

• Integrated Site Recovery

• vApps

• Rolling Pool Upgrade Wizard

• Simplified Installer

Simplicity & Ease of Use

• Fully automated upgrades (after pre-checks)• Requires HTTP, NFS or FTP

share

• Semi-automated upgrades• CD or PXE

• Dedicated for full release upgrades

Rolling Pool Upgrade

• 16 vCPU per VM

• 128Gb Memory per VM

• 1TB Physical RAM support

• XenCenter now parallelizes XenAPI operations

Performance & Scale Improvements

• Updated Guest Support• Debian Squeeze 6.0 64-bit

• Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.0 (32 and 64-bit)

• SLES 10 SP4 (32 and 64-bit)

• New Guest Support• Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 (32 and 64-bit)

• Experimental Guest Support• CentOS 6.0 (32 and

64-bit)

• Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat 10.10 (32 and 64-bit)

• Solaris 10

New guest support

• XenConvert now focused on P2V

• Fully supported VM disk and OVF appliance import directly from XenCenter

• Change parameters during Import wizard• Name

• vCPU

• vMemory

• Virtual Interfaces

• Target SR

• Run operating fix-ups to remove system drivers, vm tools, etc. from incoming image

Migration / Import / Export of VMs

Live Demo

XenServer basic functionalities

Workload Balancing

• See details in WLB admin guidehttp://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127330

WLB Process

• Reduced footprint

• Reduced add-on costs as • no additional Windows license required

• no additional database license required

• Ease of use

• Building-block concept, WLB scales with each pool

WLB XenServer 6.0 value

• Move from Windows installed service to Linux appliance

• Integrated PostgreSQL database vs. SQL server requirement

• Import appliance – configure - go

• 1 WLB appliance per pool

• Retired support for report subscriptions

WLB XenServer 6.0

Live Demo

WLB

IntegratedStorageLink

StorageLink – Enhanced Storage Integration

Fast cloning

Snapshots

Deduplication

Recovery

...

Data Communication

Management

Communication

XenServer(s)

XenServer StorageLink Evolution

XenServer <5.5 5.5 – 5.6 SP2 6.0

StorageLink Adapter

+ NetApp

+ Dell Equalogic

- iSCSI only

StorageLink Gateway

+ FibreChannel & iSCSI

+ add. storages (e.g. EMC)

- high availability required

- additional Windows lic

Integrated StorageLink

+ FibreChannel & iSCSI

+ add. storages in future

(e.g. EMC)

+ integrated high availability

+ no Windows license

+ NetApp

+ Dell EqualogicStorageLink Adapter

+ NetApp

+ Dell Equalogic

- iSCSI only

Integrated StorageLink Architecture

XenServer Host

XAPI Daemon

SMAPI

LVM NFS NetAppCSLG

Bridge…

EQL NetApp SMI-S …

Integrated StorageLink - Screenshots

Live Demo

StorageLink

High Availability

Hochverfügbarkeit

Remote VM Guest Storage

Bare Metal Hardware

Xen Hypervisor

XenTool Stack

Device Drivers

Bare Metal Hardware

Xen Hypervisor

XenTool Stack

Device Drivers

Bare Metal Hardware

Xen Hypervisor

XenTool Stack

Device DriversDo not

restart

Protected

ProtectedProtected

• XenServer 5.6 SP2 and older • Quorum requires iSCSI or FC LUN

• XenServer 6.0• Quorum can be on iSCSI, FC or NFS

XenServer 6.0 HA solution

Site Recovery

• Introduction of vApp object in XenServer 6.0

• Instance for grouping of VMs and defining start order

• 1 VM can be part of 1 vApp

• Several vApps can be created

vApps

• To be used for• HA

• Disaster Recovery

• Start order number

• Start delay: „How long should VM wait to do next vApp action?“

vApp: VM start order

XenServer Disaster Recovery Evolution

XenServer <5.5 5.5 – 5.6 SP2 6.0

manually using metadata

import / export

StorageLink

SiteRecovery

+ high automation

- high storage dependency

- only NetApp and HP

Lefthand

- StorageLink gateway VM

- add. Windows license

- additional management GUI

XenServer Disaster

Recovery

+ support for virtually all

storages

+ independent on storage

mirroring solution

+ LVM FC / iSCSI

+ XenServer and XenCenter

integration

manually using metadata

import / export

manually using metadata

import / export

Disaster Recovery Architecture

XenServer

Pool A

Storage A Storage B

Data Replication

by Storage

XenServer

Pool B

VM

1

VM

2

VM

nVM

1

VM

2

VM

n

XenServer Disaster Recovery

in case of failure of Site A

• Support for all HCL listed storages (LVM, iSCSI/FC)

• Leverages storage vendor replication solution

• Full wizard based XenCenter integration

• Leverages vApps for controlled recovery

• Test / failover / failback support

• No management VM required

XenServer 6.0 Disaster Recovery

Live Demo

vApps / HA / Site Recovery

Networking Improvements

• Strong interest for Software-Defined Networking & OpenFlow in Cloud

• XenServer Virtual Switch provides “open” alternative to proprietary networking stacks

• Provides layer for future ecosystem value add

• Open vSwitch default networking stack in XenServer 6.0

Open Virtual Switch for XenServer

• Open vSwitch is the default network stack in XenServer 6.0

• Linux Bridge users will be automatically upgraded to Open vSwitch

• Reverting to Linux Bridge is possible through CLI

• Future networking enhancements will be focused on Open vSwitch

Open Virtual Switch for XenServer

• Added to XenServer5.6 FP1 for Linux Bridge• CLI only in 5.6 FP1

• Added support for Active-Backup for Open vSwitch

• Configurable through XenCenter

Active-Backup Bonding Support

MS SCVMM / SCOM support

• XenServer 6.0 supports SCVMM and SCOM• Management of XenServer VMs via System

Center Virtual Machine Manager

• System Center Operations Manager pack for monitoring

• Support for various VM and host operations and monitoring

• Certain Host/Pool management operations still in XenCenter (e.g. HA, DR)

Support for SCVMM and SCOM

• VM Deployment• VM Template and Services Deployment

• Intelligent Placement (Host Rating)

• Support for PV and HVM Virtual Machines

• VMM Templates (not XenServer Templates)

• VM Migration• XenMotion (within the attached Resource

Pool)

• LAN Migration between XenServer and the VMM Library

• No V2V (use P2V instead)

SCVMM & XenServer Capabilities

• Host Management• Dynamic Optimization

• Power Optimization

• Maintenance Mode

• Storage Repositories

• Network• OOB Integration

• Support for logical networks

• Network Topology View

• SCVMM communicates with CIMOM in XenServer which communicates with XAPI

• Requires SCVMM 2012

• Very easy to setup• Delivered as Integration Suite

Supplemental Pack

• Add Resource Pool or host

• Secure communication using certificates

Support for SCVMM

SCVMM Screenshots

• Monitor XenServer hosts through System Center Operations Manager

• Support for SCOM 2007 R2

• Part of Integration Suite Supplemental Pack

• Monitor various host information (considered Linux host)• Memory usage

• Process information

• Health status

• Requires Enterprise or Platinum

Support for SCOM

SCOM Screenshots

Live Demo

SCVMM Integration

XenServer for XenDesktop

• No single point of failure by pooled architecture

• Management HA integrated, no extra service

• XenDesktop support for XenServer HA / Master failover

XenServer integrated HA for management / API

XenServer PoolXenDesktop Controller

1.1

1.2

1.3

• >50% of XenDesktop deployments run on XenServer

• XenServer Enterprise included in XenDesktop

• XenServer reduces server and storage cost massively

XenServer – Best platform for XenDesktop

XenServer

XenDesktop

Windows 7

IntelliCacheTM

XenServer

1

Storage

Windows 7

n50% lower central storage cost

by IntelliCacheTM

Best support for HDX 3D desktops

by GPU Pass-Thru

More desktops per server

by Dynamic Memory Control

and more …

2 deployment options for XenDesktop VMs

Provisioning

Server

(PVS)

Machine

Creation

Services

(MCS)

Storage I/O for desktop deployment

Storage

Provisioning Server

Windows Cache

Hypervisor

Storage HypervisorI/O + Space

Array side caching

Storage

Cache

• While MCS provides advantages like ease-of-use or simple architecture all I/O

hits storage capacity

Provisioning

Server

(PVS)

Storage HypervisorI/O + Space

Machine

Creation

Services

(MCS)

Target side cache option

IntelliCacheTM

Local storage caching for Machine Creation Services

Storage HypervisorI/O + Space

• IntelliCacheTM enhances machine creation service by target side caching

architecture

• XenDesktop deployments scale with each server added

• Inexpensive local storage reduces TCO

Storage

XenServer

Target side caching

IntelliCacheTM

Machine

Creation

Services

(MCS)

R/W Cache

at runtime

IntelliCacheTM in action

NFS Shared Storage

Intellicache

Read Cache

XenServer Host

Base Disk

Clones per VM

Pooled

Desktops

Live Demo

IntelliCache

• Enables high-end graphics in VDI deployments with HDX 3D Pro

• Optimal CAD application support with XenDesktop

• More powerful than RemoteFX, virtual GPUs, or other general purpose graphics solutions

GPU Pass-through Support

Without GPU pass-through, each user requires their own Blade PC

Benefits of GPU Pass-through

With GPU pass-through, hardwarecosts are cut up to 75%

GPU cards

XenServer Host

• Identical GPUs in a host auto-create a GPU group

• The GPU Group can be assigned to set of VMs – each VM will attach to a GPU at VM boottime

• When all GPUs in a group are in use, additional VMs requiring GPUs will not start

• GPU and non-GPU VMs can (and should) be mixed on a host

• GPU groups are recognized within a pool• If Server 1, 2, 3 each have GPU type 1, then VMs

requiring GPU type 1 can be started on any of those servers

GPU Pass-through: How does it work

• Server• HP ProLiant WS460c G6 Workstation series*

• GPU (1-4 per host)• NVIDIA Quadro 4000, 5000, 6000

• NVIDIA Tesla M2070Q

• Support for Windows guest only

• Self Certification kit TBD

• Important: Combinations of servers + GPUs must be tested as a pair

Initial Supported Hardware – Limited HCL

Live Demo

GPU Pass-Thru

Summary

Enterprise

Platinum

FreeXenServer

XenServer

Premium

Editions

• Automated VM Protection and Recovery

• Distributed Virtual Switching

• Mixed Resource Pools by CPU Masking

• Dynamic Memory Control

• High Availability

• Performance Reporting and Alerting

Citrix XenServer 6.0 Family

• GPU Pass-Thru

• Monitoring Pack for SystemCenter Operations Manager

• Workload Balancing incl. Power Management

• StorageLinkTM Advanced Storage Management

• IntelliCacheTM for XenDesktop Storage Optimization

• Role-based Administration

• Live Memory Snapshots

• Provisioning Services for Virtual Servers

• Web Management Console with delegated Administration

• Site Recovery

• Provisioning Services for Physical Servers

Advanced

• Management Integration with SystemCenter Virtual Machine Manager

• SAN Boot Multipathing Support

• Active Directory Integration

• Storage Snapshots

• No socket restriction

• XenCenter Management incl. shared storage and XenMotionTM

included in

XenDesktopfor XenDesktop related

workloads

Includes also

Provisioning for

physical

desktops