Hello, Citrix community!
For those who attended Summit this year, I hope you had as much fun as I did! As always, it was a fantastic event that afforded me the opportunity to meet with many of our awesome partners, speak with some of my long-time colleagues and even get to know some new Citrites. And as I expected, the one common thread amongst us all is the passion we share to help empower our customers to say “YES!” to the digital transformation era. Together, we continue to accomplish our mission by providing our customers with the industry’s best products and services — hands-down!
Since writing my first article as a member of the XenServer PM team, I’ve received numerous inquiries regarding the PVS vDisk caching feature coming in XenServer 7.1. With so many people asking for the details around this new feature, officially called “PVS-Accelerator,” as well as the many other features coming in 7.1, I thought it would be a great time to share what I know about the latest release of XenServer with the Citrix community. Below is the first of several articles focusing on what you can expect from XenServer 7.1.
As with previous versions of XenServer, version 7.1 (code-name “Ely”) offers our customers the best that virtualization has to offer, including:
- high-end virtual graphics support for graphics-intensive applications
- the latest in advanced security technology via Hypervisor Introspection (HVI)
- PVS-Accelerator – improves virtual desktop performance and scale – further evidence that Citrix’s “Better Together” concept is firing on all cylinders!
- streamlined approach to installing product updates
- live-patching that enables non-disruptive product updating
- long-term support release (LTSR) that further exemplifies Citrix’s long-term commitment to our XenServer customers
- and much more!
After you read this article, please make sure to share it with colleagues, customers and partners so, together, we can spread the word about all the really cool things coming in XenServer 7.1!
The first feature we’ll put in the spotlight is updated support for vGPU (i.e., graphics pass-through), for which XenServer continues to lead the charge. With this capability, customers are able to run the most graphics-intense applications required to operate their businesses and provide the highest-quality products and services to their clients. With enhanced support for the latest Nvidia graphics cards and newly introduced support for Intel Iris Pro Graphics, which requires no add-on graphics card, XenServer 7.1 remains the leader in high-end virtual graphics support.
For customers that use NVIDIA® graphics cards, XenServer 7.1 offers support for up to 128 vGPUs per Host! Yes, you read that correctly: per HOST! Just how significant is this number? Well, as you probably know, without a GPU a VM consumes considerably more CPU utilization, lowering VM density (number of VMs that can run concurrently per host system) substantially. Allowing up to 128 VMs to fully utilize their own GPU makes the lack of quality graphics support ancient history for organizations looking to reap the benefits of a virtualized IT infrastructure!
With XenServer 7.1 and Intel® Iris™ Pro Graphics ((GVT-g) – a CPU with on-chip GPU that can be split into seven virtual GPUs – customers are able to easily meet the demands of the industry’s most graphics-intense applications while achieving superior levels of productivity at far lower cost than ever before!
As you can see, it’s no wonder Citrix has recently seen such a dramatic uptick in the number of organizations requesting evaluations of XenServer. Our customers have done their due-diligence and know that XenServer is the leader in virtual graphics support for high-end graphics applications.
In part two of this mini-series, we’ll review the latest in advanced security technology: Hypervisor Introspection (HVI). You’ll learn what it is, how it works and the significant benefits it’s going to bring to our customers. And, as with many of the other features we’ll discuss throughout this mini-series, this advanced technology is currently only available with Citrix XenServer!
Until next time!
Andy
