As announced a couple of weeks ago, just before its conference, the Synergy 2009, Citrix opens the new beta program for its free hypervisor XenServer.
Unlike we suggested in our previous article, the new version, codenamed Project George, is numbered 5.5 and not 5.1.
As already said the new product includes the following features:
- Active Directory integration. Specify the AD domain to use for authentication by the pool and use your AD credentials to connect to the pool via XenCenter and ssh. You control which AD users/groups are allowed access.
- Workload balancing. Guest and host performance metrics are used to create star ratings for individual VM placement and balancing recommendations for resource pools to achieve optimal performance.
- LVHD. Fast cloning and snapshots are now supported on all SR types through integration of our software VHD stack and LVM-based Storage Repositories (SRs)
- Snapshot support in XenCenter. Create and manage disk snapshots from within XenCenter.
- StorageLink integration. CLI-only support for a new StorageLink Gateway SR that adds native standards-based support for HP MSA, HP EVA, EMC Clariion, and NetApp storage arrays over iSCSI and Fibre Channel with optional automated initiator/fabric/array management.
- Expanded guest OS support. RHEL 5.3, Debian Lenny, and SLES 11 Linux guests.
Citrix expects this beta to last one month.
Enroll for it here.