On July 5th Citrix announced the availability of XenServer 6.0 beta (formerly “Project Boston“), based on the Xen 4.1 Hypervisor.
This beta is public and available for download here (a mycitrix.com account is required). A webinar, covering all of the new features of XenServer 6.0, is scheduled for today at 5:00 – 6:30 PM CEST. Registration here.
Below is a list of some of the changes in this beta:
- Simplified management infrastructure for Workload Balancing, StorageLink, and Site Recovery
- Workload Balancing is available as a Linux-based virtual appliance for easy installation and management.
- The Open vSwitch (OVS) is now the default network stack.
- The new Self Service Manager feature enables you to build self-service environments for “private clouds.” Self-Service Manager includes support for both XenServer as well as VMware vSphere.
- VMDK and VHD import functionality is integrated into XenCenter for interoperability with VMware VMDK and Microsoft VHD disk images.
- Starting with the XS 6.0 release, you will have the option of managing XenServer hosts and VMs with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012.
- System Center integration is available with a special supplemental pack from Citrix, which is targeted for general availability when System Center 2012 ships later this year.
- With the 6.0 release, a physical GPU can be assigned to a VM so the applications running in the guest can leverage GPU instructions (“GPU pass-thru”). This provides significant TCO benefits for the XenDesktop HDX 3D Pro technology used for delivery of CAD and other graphical applications via virtual desktops.
- Host RAM support has been increased to 1 TB.
- VM vCPU and vRAM support is increased (up to 16 vCPUs and 128 GB RAM for Windows; increased Linux vCPU and vRAM support levels vary by distro).