Today we’re announcing the release of XenServer 7.4, a new milestone in XenServer’s leadership of GPU virtualization support. XenServer 7.4 is the only hypervisor to support live migration of vGPU-enabled virtual machines, and also the only hypervisor to fully support GPU virtualization from all three major GPU vendors.
Best for GPU Flexibility & Choice
The industry’s first live migration solution for vGPU-enabled VMs with vGPU XenMotion. The industry’s first live migration solution, vGPU XenMotion: XenServer 7.4 further extends our leadership in the hypervisor space. With GA support for NVIDIA virtual GPU (vGPU) enabled live migration, a capability not available from any other hypervisor, vGPU XenMotion can help you improve end-user experience and VM performance by enabling redistribution of VMs as hosts’ resources become strained. It also gives you flexibility by minimizing scheduled downtime and reducing disruption during unexpected maintenance. vGPU XenMotion will be available upon release of GA supported software from NVIDIA.
Enabling GPU choice for Citrix graphic-accelerated workspaces: XenServer 7.4 delivers GA support for AMD MxGPU technology, the world’s first hardware-based virtualized GPU solution. AMD MxGPU technology allows up to 16 vGPU-enabled VMs per physical GPU, with up to 3 cards per host. Multi-user GPU (MxGPU) technology is also fully integrated with the Citrix HDX 3D Pro protocol. To provide the best possible user experience and performance, HDX 3D Pro enables users to deliver desktops and applications that leverage the GPU for hardware acceleration.
Deliver graphically-intensive apps and desktops with Citrix Cloud XenApp and XenDesktop Service and XenServer: Graphics-accelerated workspaces from Citrix ensure the highest-performance user experience in virtual apps and virtual desktops. You can also use Citrix Cloud XenApp and XenDesktop Service to deliver graphically-intensive workspaces from on-premises resource locations with XenServer, as XenServer Enterprise is included in the entitlement of the XenApp and XenDesktop Service.
As your journey to the cloud begins, this hybrid model enables you to consume the XenApp and XenDesktop control plane as a cloud service, while keeping your virtual app servers and virtual desktops on-premises, hosted on XenServer. Among compatible hypervisors, XenServer is the one most often integrated with XenApp and XenDesktop. It also is the hypervisor with the most mature and complete virtualized graphics capabilities. The choice of XenServer nets significant cost savings that can be applied to adding GPUs to your XenApp and XenDesktop deployments! Increase user satisfaction and help to increase user density.
Upgrading to XenServer 7.4
Customers running XenServer 7.3 can easily move to XenServer 7.4 by downloading the update package. This is effectively a “large hotfix” package, that can be deployed using the XenCenter updates wizard: moving between releases couldn’t be easier! Meanwhile, if you’re using the XenServer 7.1 Long Term Support Release (LTSR), you can easily upgrade from 7.1 CU1 to 7.4 using the normal full upgrade mechanism. Please see Chapter 6 of the 7.4 Installation Guide for full details.
As with all Current Releases (CRs) of XenServer, customers should be aware of the shorter lifetime of these releases as compared to the LTSR stream. Please see Lifecycle Milestones for XenServer for more information.
Want to Learn More About XenServer?
Visit the XenServer product pages to learn more. There you will find a full feature matrix that compares the different editions of XenServer (Free, Standard, and Enterprise). To try XenServer Enterprise Edition, simply request a free 90-day trial.
Check out the What’s New with Citrix Workspace in February 2018 blog post to learn about all of the latest innovations from Citrix, including the XenApp and XenDesktop 7.17 release.
