Citrix XenServer 5.6 FP1 Released

  • Web Self-Service Portal - XenServer administrators can delegate rights to select individuals, allowing them to request and access virtual machines via the browser. This technology could be based on the recent VMLogix acquisition.
  • VM Protection and Recovery - This could be the Citrix response to VMware's Data Recovery. This new feature offers policy-based snapshotting and archiving of selected virtual machines across a XenServer resource pool. Administrators can perform scheduling and recovery through the XenCenter management console.
  • HA Restart Priority - Administrators can instruct the system as to which virtual machines in the environment should be restarted first, and in what order they should be brough back online should there be a failure requiring reboot. As an example, a policy can be put into effect to start the StorageLink Gateway VMs or the Distributed vSwitch Controller VM before anything else is brought back online.
  • Boot from SAN with Multi-Pathing Support - Boot XenServer hosts with Fibre Channel and iSCSI HBAs from a SAN, with multipathing support.
  • Improved XenDesktop VDI Scalability - Increased host virtual machine density and resource pool scalability via multi-vCPU control domain (Dom0) and other enhancements.
  • Enhanced Guest OS Support - Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, RHEL 6.0 (RTM), CentOS 6.0 (RTM), Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.0 (RTM), Debian Squeeze (32 and 64-bit), and SLES 11 SP1.
    • via infoworld.com

    Some great improvements especially distributed virtual switching.

    PHD Virtual 5.1 Released

    Testing 5.1 today - excellent product, some great features added to 5.1 such as,

    Flexible Backup Storage Options: New in 5.1

    Backup virtual machines to locally attached storage or external storage locations via NFS or SMB/CIFS share.

    Set It and Forget It Job Scheduling: New in 5.1

    Backup jobs can be assigned to defined containers (representing hosts, resource pools, folders…).  Any VM in a container or later added to a container will automatically be backed up based on job settings.  For flexibility, specific VM’s in a container can be set to be excluded from backups.

    File Level Restore (FLR) Any OS, Any File System: New in 5.1

    Quickly restore individual files and folders without the need to restore the entire virtual machine image.

    Application Object Recovery: New in 5.1

    Use your existing recovery tools to quickly restore application objects (database object, mailbox, mail message, etc.) directly from backup storage.

    Supports Tape Backup Solutions: New in 5.1

    Backup Data Connector enables quick and easy integration with tape backup solutions.

    Backup Retention & Archiving – Meet DR and Retention Policies: New in 5.1

    Define and configure flexible retention policies for storing VM backups.  Flexible trim options can automatically remove old backups based on customizable policies.  Archiving provides the ability to mark specific backups for archive to exclude them from being deleted by the retention policy. Archive can be set at the job level for increased flexibility.

    Get the full run down here: http://www.phdvirtual.com/overview_citrix

    Phd2
    Phd1

    One area I would like improved and it’s a small request is the initial login screen, it’s terrible - please add some basic functionality e.g. Save different hostnames, usernames etc...

    Phd3

    or get rid of it and integrate into the main app - He is what im thinking.

    Loginscreen