Christian Ferber

Sr. Systems Engineer Cloud Infrastructure

XenServer 6.1

November 2012

© 2012 Citrix

Gartner Magic Quadrant Report

Citrix placed in the leaders quadrant

“The competitive market for x86 server virtualization

infrastructure has matured, leading more enterprises to

reconsider their choices, and, instead, consider multiple virtualization

infrastructures.”*

*Gartner references extracted from “Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure” published June 11, 2012

© 2012 Citrix

Customer Example: 1&1 Internet

• Leading global Web Hosting provider ᵒ 5 data centers with 70,000 servers in Europe and USA

ᵒ Over 11 million customers on paid services

ᵒ Manage over 18 million domain names

• Searching for best solution for its public cloud offering,

Dynamic Cloud Server

• XenServer chosen for cloud platform due to: ᵒ product maturity

ᵒ open source code-base

ᵒ flexible pricing model

ᵒ Citrix worldwide support and services

• Looking at other Citrix offerings ᵒ Evaluating Citrix CloudPlatform for cloud orchestration layer

© 2012 Citrix

XenServer Meets All Virtualization Needs

Enterprise

Data Center

•High performance, resilient virtualization platform

•Simple deployment and management model

•Host based licensing to control CAPEX

Desktop

Virtualization •Optimized for high performance desktop workloads

•Storage optimizations to control VDI CAPEX

Cloud

Infrastructure

•Platform for IaaS and Cloud Service Providers

•Powers the NetScaler SDX platform

•Fully supports Software Defined Networking

•Enhanced integrations with Citrix CloudPlatform

XenServer Optimized Hypervisor for Enterprise, Desktops

and Cloud

© 2012 Citrix

Workload Balancing

• Automated guest start-up and

management based on defined

policy

• Guests automatically migrate from

one host to another based on

resource usage

• Power-on/off hosts as needed

• Report on utilization of pool

resources – by VM, by host, etc.

© 2012 Citrix

Delegated Web Based Administration

• Enables: ᵒ IT delegation for administrators

ᵒ VM level administration for end users

• Support for multiple pools

• Active Directory enabled ᵒ Leverages XenServer RBAC

• XenVNC and RDP console access

© 2012 Citrix

Integrated Site Recovery

• Supports LVM SRs

• Replication/mirroring setup outside

scope of solution ᵒ Follow vendor instructions

ᵒ Breaking of replication/mirror also manual

• Works with every iSCSI and FC

array on HCL

• Supports active-active DR

© 2012 Citrix

Supporting High Performance Graphics

• Feature name: GPU pass-through

• 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

© 2012 Citrix

Controlling Shared Storage Costs – IntelliCache

• Caching of XenDesktop 5 images

• Leverages local storage

• Reduce IOPS on shared storage

• Supported since XenServer 5.6 SP2

© 2012 Citrix

Distributed Virtual Network Switching

• Virtual Switch ᵒ Open source: www.openvswitch.org

ᵒ Provides a rich layer 2 feature set

ᵒ Cross host internal networks

ᵒ Rich traffic monitoring options

• DVS Controller ᵒ Virtual appliance

ᵒ Web-based GUI

ᵒ Can manage multiple pools

ᵒ Can exist within pool it manages

VM

VM

VM

VM

VM

XenServer 6.1 News

© 2012 Citrix

Updated Guest support

• Ubuntu 12.04

• CentOS 5.7, 6.0, 6.1, 6.2

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7, 6.1, 6.2

• Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.7, 6.1, 6.2

• Windows 8 / 2012 experimental

© 2012 Citrix

Dom-0 vCPU

• Dom-0 vCPUs can be enhanced as required (up to 8)

• http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX134738

• Change settings ᵒ Default: /etc/init.d/tune-vcpus start min

ᵒ Maximum: /etc/init.d/tune-vcpus start max

• Indication for overloaded Dom-0 ᵒ XenCenter performance graph for „Control Domain Load“ (to be added manually)

ᵒ If load is permanently higher than number of Dom-0 vCPUs, increasing Dom-0 vCPUs

should be considered

© 2012 Citrix

Performance Monitoring Enhancements

• New performance counters through performance monitoring supplemental

• http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX135033

© 2012 Citrix

Automated Hardware Test Kit

• Automated Server Hardware Test Kit

• Reduces the time spent running certification tests

• http://www.citrix.com/partner-programs/citrix-ready/test.html

• Available as supplemental pack

• Requires 2 servers, 2 NICs each, VLAN on switch and storage attached

Networking Enhancements

© 2012 Citrix

Networking Enhancements

• LACP bonding support

• Support for up to 4 NICs per bond

• VLAN scalability improvements

• Port locking for cloud providers

• IPv6 guest support

NIC 1

VM 1

Virtual

interface

(VIF)

LACP Bond

NIC 2

App 1

App 2

VM traffic

Virtual

interface

(VIF)

VM 2

App 1

App 2

Stacked

Switches

© 2012 Citrix

Active-Active SLB vs. LACP

• Can be used with any switch

• No requirement for stacking (6.1)

• Support up to 4 NICs

• Load balancing only if multiple MAC

addresses are present

• All links can be active regardless of

traffic type

• Source MAC as well as IP/port

based load balancing

• Requires 802.3ad standard on

switch

• Requires switch-side configuration

• All links must be connected to 1

switch/stack switches

Active-Active SLB LACP

© 2012 Citrix

LACP Bonding – Mode 1

• Default mode

• Load balancing on source or destination IP

or port

• 1 VM can utilize all ports

• Best option when different applications are

used per VM

© 2012 Citrix

LACP Bonding – Mode 2

• Option

• Load balancing based on source MAC

• Best option when multiple VMs are used on

one host

• In case low number of VMs is used

(especially if #VIF < #NICs) not all physicall

NICs will be utilized

© 2012 Citrix

Network Port locking

• Locking a virtual NIC to a MAC address and

IP combination –> multi tenancy

• Prevents from

ᵒ Claiming an IP or MAC address other than the ones

the XenServer administrator has specified it can use

ᵒ Intercepting, spoofing, or disrupting the traffic

of other VMs

• Support

ᵒ Supported on bridge and OVS

ᵒ Advanced Edition or higher

ᵒ Not to be used with DVS controller

• Configuration

ᵒ xe vif-param-set uuid=<vif-uuid> locking-mode=locked

ᵒ xe vif-param-set uuid=<vif-uuid> ipv4-allowed=<comma separated list of ipv4-addresses>

Storage Enhancements

© 2012 Citrix

Virtualization can hinder the linkage

between servers and storage, turning

expensive storage systems into little

more than “dumb disks”

XenServer Hosts

Storage StorageLink

Citrix StorageLink™ technology lets your

virtual servers fully leverage all the

power of existing storage systems

XenServer Hosts

Optimizing Storage – Integrated StorageLink

NetApp

Dell Equallogic

EMC VNX

© 2012 Citrix

XenServer Pool

• Extends standard XenMotion

• Migrates VM disks from any

storage type to any other

storage type ᵒ Local, DAS, iSCSI, FC

• Supports cross pool migration ᵒ Requires compatible CPUs

• Encrypted Migration model

• Specify management interface

for optimal performance

Live Storage XenMotion

XenServer Hypervisor

VDI(s)

Live Virtual

Machine

XenServer Conversion

Manager

© 2012 Citrix

XenServer Conversion Manager

• Convert VMware virtual machines to

XenServer (vSphere 4.0 & 4.1)

• Convert multiple virtual machines in one

simple wizard

• Map network settings between VMware and

XenServer so your converted virtual machines

will come up with the proper network settings

• Choose the storage location where you would

like your new XenServer virtual machines to

run

© 2012 Citrix

XenServer Conversion Manager

XenServer VMware

VPX

XML RPC

xapi

VDI

VDI

XCM Console

XenServer Pricing and

Packaging

© 2012 Citrix

Feature Free Advanced Enterprise Platinum 64-bit Xen Hypervisor a a a a

Active Directory Integration a a a a

VM Conversion Utilities a a a a

Live VM Migration with XenMotion™ a a a a

Multi-Server Management with XenCenter a a a a

Management Integration with Systems Center VMM a a a a

Automated VM Protection and Recovery a a a

Live Storage Migration with Storage XenMotion™ a a a

Distributed Virtual Switching a a a

Dynamic Memory Control a a a

High Availability a a a

Performance Reporting and Alerting a a a

Mixed Resource Pools with CPU Masking a a a

Dynamic Workload Balancing and Power Management a a

GPU Pass-Through for Desktop Graphics Processing a a

IntelliCache™ for XenDesktop Storage Optimization a a

Live Memory Snapshot and Revert a a

Provisioning Services for Virtual Servers a a

Role-Based Administration and Audit Trail a a

StorageLink™ Advanced Storage Management a a

Monitoring Pack for Systems Center Ops Manager a a

Web Management Console with Delegated Admin a a

Provisioning Services for Physical Servers a

Site Recovery a

Price Free $1000/server $2500/server $5000/server

XenServer 6.1 – Product Edition Feature Matrix

© 2012 Citrix

Support Options XenServer Support Options Premier Support

Cost 7% of license cost (SRP)

Product Coverage XenServer Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum

Coverage Hours 24x7x365

Incidents Unlimited

Named Contacts Unlimited

Type of Access Phone/Web/Email

Add-on Service Options

Software or Hardware TRM 200 hours/Unlimited incidents/1region $40,000

Additional TRM hours 100 hours $20,000

Fully Dedicated TRM 1600 hours/Unlimited incidents/1 region $325,000

On-site Days On-site technical support service $2,000 per day

Assigned Escalation 200 hours/1 region (must have TRM) $16,000

Fully Dedicated Assigned Escalation 1600 hours $480,000

Work better. Live better.