SYN 103: Learn What’s New with XenServer

Believe it or not XenServer 6.5 was a “minor” release

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=345772928 (Standard License purchased by
Enzo Raso)

Enzo Raso)

And an even greater pain to maintain

One or two VMs, OK.
But it’s a lot harder for a big deployment!

Enzo Raso)

Windows Update to the rescue!
For New VMs:
• Install Windows.
• Windows Update will install the drivers and the light agent (storage optimised, network
optimised but not management optimised)
• Will then need Tools ISO or MSI to install the full agent
• After which the VM will have the full agent too

Enzo Raso)

Who knows what this logo is?
• TaaS/CIS/AutoSupport.
Customers manually upload their log files, the system analyses them, then provides a
report on the health of the system.

Customers can automate the process of uploading Server Status Reports to Citrix Insight
Services and will receive notifications in XenCenter, regarding the health of their systems,
based on the reports that CIS generates
Upload schedule is user configurable, default is random per machine
Can provide a different RBAC user’s credentials for connecting to XenServer
No need to keep typing same details in for Citrix upload service
Key points of the architecture:
A service runs on every machine that XenCenter is installed on. This means that we don’t
need XenCenter open all the time.
Communications are on standard HTTP ports.
Can configure a proxy (use the standard one setup in XenCenter)

XenServer Dundee’s new partition layout:
• Dedicated logging partition, to avoid logs filling disk, regardless of logrotate
configuration.
• Dedicated disk swap partition.
• Primary and Backup partitions grown by 14 GB each

TCO reduction as Admins can add any class of server to a pool without command line (or
esoteric programs)
No more reboots of hosts when adding or removing servers or VMs running on them
• After boot, features never disappear from a VM
• Different CPUs appear similar

Today on XenServer, you can achieve shared nothing live migration, where VMs do not
share any storage.
The disk blocks are copied between the hosts.

However, when a VM is offline, VM storage migration (shared-nothing) is blocked

Previously only supported for running VMs, now adds stopped and suspended VMs
No limit on number of snapshots that can be migrated
Supports Checkpoints
Allows for a copy as well as migration
Enables far more flexibility for admins

• Available for Linux VMs only when XenCenter can determine the VM’s network address. This
requires VM Tools to be installed on the VM.

Enzo Raso)

Chart depicts VDI, but storage is a major cost component of any solution
We deliver reduced TCO, added features and increased coverage

Surveys indicate that – just as customers don’t want to be locked into one virtualisation
technology – neither do they use one storage technology

XenServer now supports SMB3 storage as an SR type
Customers with existing Microsoft Windows-based storage arrays can now utilise SMB as
their XenServer SR
Enables significant potential cost savings and re-use of existing infrastructure
Supports Read Cache that will radically reduce IOPS for your MCS XenDesktop VDI solution
• Tested this on Server2012R2 Storage Server and NetApp (should work on any platform that
supports SMBv3)
• If using NetApp ensure you’re using ONTAP v8.3 or later

Includes Boot from SAN, uses a new installer for Boot from SAN (F10)
ovs and Bridge

XenServer can be installed to, booted from, and run from a LUN provided by an iSCSI
target, which is specified in the iSCSI Boot Firmware Table (iBFT)
Support for ISCSI means customers can avoid the expense of purchasing a FC expansion
card for the UCS or requiring FC on their SAN

Yes, there are applications used by designers which need a high-performance vGPU profile
(or even an entire GPU passed-through to them)
But for every 1 designer there are many more power users who run certain applications
that need significant GPU power (otherwise it’s offloaded to the CPU)
And for every power user there are _lots_ of task workers who use Office, web browsers
(e.g. HTML5 applications), and view increasingly complex PDFs. Yes, everything can be
done by the CPU, but at that point desktop density (and user experience) will drop. This is
where vGPU comes into its own. A small slice of GPU goes a long way
Case in point: try PowerPoint with transitions or diagrams that involve 3-D and you’ll
experience it for yourself

Once users experience GPU acceleration – there is no going back

In XS6.5 we delivered Intel GPU pass-through as well as other NVIDIA GPU innovations
With Intel GVT-g, we’re announcing Intel’s GPU virtualisation technology
Importantly, it provides an option for GPU virtualisation that does _not_ require an
additional graphics card to be purchased: the capability will be present on the CPU(s)
when you purchase the server

GVT-g is scale out, Nvidia vGPU is scale up
Enables amongst other things video compression/decompression

128 vGPUs available on Tesla generation of NVIDIA cards only

Delivering 2D acceleration (especially useful for web browsers, support for bigger displays
(>1024x768), H264 encoding/decoding and support for CUDA (note CUDA requires M60
and an entire GPU)
For Linux VDA this requires HDX 3D Pro support which enables higher frame rates and
lossless operation
Supported on Linux PV/HVM guests

Traditional full guest agent is installed as a privileged application to scan disk/memory to
remove known malware.
• Problems:
• Each machine has an agent that requires maintenance
• Doesn’t play nicely in virtualized environments (AV storms)
• Security agent is a target for attack

Lite Agent is the traditional approach optimized for virtualized environments – each VM
has either a small dedicated ‘lite’ agent, or solutions make use of the hypervisor tools
agent/kernel module. Single point on the network manages these lite agents, and allows
offloading of disk/memory activity scanning
• Problems:
• Offloading limits the extent to which memory can be protected, relies mostly on disk scanning
• Lite security agent is still a target for attack

Agentless requires an equivalent agent provided by the hypervisor vendor, installed as part
of it’s guest OS tools. The security vendor now integrates with an API provided by the
hypervisor
• Problems:
• Constrains innovation and performance, all vendors are now constrained by the intelligence of
the hypervisor provided agent

All agent based AV solutions have the same problem, they are designed to combat
common malware
Yet the threat of advanced malware continues to grow with exploits of zero-day
vulnerabilities and kernel bugs

All agent based AV solutions have the same problem, they are designed to combat
common malware

Both full and lite agent based AV have the same problem, they are designed to combat
common malware
With X-ray Guard enabled, a supported security solution is able to watch guest memory in
real time, detecting malware as it executes inside the VM.
• By virtue of the isolation the hypervisor provides, the security solution can no longer be
attacked by the malware.
• In fact, the system can be and will be assumed to have been infected – rather than
relying on an initial clean state.
Only on XenServer

common malware
Only on XenServer

Support the running of Windows Docker containers on Windows Server 2016, where
Windows Server 2016 is running as a VM on XenServer.
Same model as for Linux Docker containers running inside Linux VMs – containers are
shown in the XenCenter tree view from where a number of management and monitoring
functions are available

This feature automates connecting to the container’s console or log stream by launching
PuTTY with arguments to connect to the VM’s IP address and a command to connect to
the container – this saves the administrator manually extracting both pieces of
information and setting up a connection manually.
The user can set up a private key, or use normal username/password authentication

Enables customers to better sweat assets, and realise economies of scale

Resume of huge VMs may take a while!

vCPUs increase to 32 for both Linux and Windows

VM stop / start time is impacted linearly by number of VBDs

It is now safer to run many I/O intensive VMs on a single host
Easier to run 16 hosts in a pool
No need to preclude poolmaster from running VM workloads
• Enables greater VM densities across deployments

Reasons for improvement
Aggregate intrahost network throughput
• Grant-table locking scalability
• Increased number of dom0 vCPUs
VM-to-bare-metal (8 threads)
• Multi-queue netif protocol
Sequential storage read IOPS
• Polling in tapdisk3

PBIS (Power Broker Identity Services) 8.2 replaced the Likewise 5.4 used within XenServer
6.x
Improved Performance, scale and reliability, especially for complex or nested directory
structures

Microsoft Server 2016 is not for production use as it has not yet been released!
XenServer 6.5 was based on Centos 5

The WLB appliance supports XenServer 6.0, 6.1, 6.5 and 7.0

http://www.shutterstock.com/lightboxes/44840275 (Standard License purchased by Enzo
Raso)
TLSv1.2 is the latest and safest protocol version.
• XenServer 6.x uses SSLv3 outgoing, and accepts SSLv3 and TLSv1.0 incoming
Drop support for weaker ciphersuites.

Supports legacy and UEFI boot
Future replacement for legacy PC BIOS (which will eventually be phased out)

We strive to ensure every release is of higher quality than the previous one
This graph shows the cumulative number of unique defects in XenServer (y axis) over time
(x axis) since release.
The metric used is the “CRUD”, Customer Reported Unique Defects

Our most extensive test program to date
The Dundee Tech Preview Program (Ran from Q4 2015 through Q1 2016)

Enzo Raso)

SYN 103: Learn What’s New with XenServer

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SYN 103: Learn What’s New with XenServer