Setup Guide

8 Overview
• Improved reliability—XenServer hosts can connect to remote internet
small computer system interface (iSCSI) or Network File System (NFS)
storage and take advantage of features such as Citrix XenMotion to
minimize VM downtime and workload migration
.
• Improved XenServer updates—To improve reliability of software upgrades,
the XenServer image contains a primary and secondary copy of the
XenServer file system. At any time when an update is applied, only the
secondary copy is updated, leaving the primary copy in a known good state.
The secondary copy now becomes the primary image. You can update the
XenServer host by using the XenServer local console or XenCenter.
• Pre-certified and supported configurations—XenServer is certified and
supported by Dell for select system and storage configurations.
• Granular Role-based Access Controls—Users can be assigned one of several
roles, which allows them to execute different levels of administrative tasks
from XenCenter and the command-line interface (CLI).
• Dynamic Memory Control—This feature allows the memory utilization of
existing VMs to be compressed so that additional VMs can boot on the
host. This can effectively increase the number of VMs per host. Once VMs
on that host are shut down or migrated to other hosts, running VMs can
reclaim unused physical host memory.
NOTE: Installation of XenServer on flash storage is no longer supported by
Citrix or Dell.
VM Operating System Support
XenServer VMs are created from templates. A template is a file that contains the
configuration settings to instantiate a specific VM. XenServer ships with a base
set of templates, some that can boot an operating system installation media, and
others that run an installation from a network repository.
For a list of supported operating systems and installation methods, see the
XenServer installation guide at mycitrix.com.