Citrix XenServer is a complete, managed server virtualization platform built on the Xen hypervisor. You can use XenServer for virtualizing Microsoft Windows and Linux servers easily and efficiently.
XenServer is the enterprise-ready, cloud-proven virtualization platform that contains all the capabilities required to create and manage a virtual infrastructure.
XenServer is available in four different editions. Starting from the free edition, you will be able to set up a virtual infrastructure with live migration, snapshots, and management features.
This book will take you through deploying XenServer in your enterprise and teach you how to create and maintain your datacenter. The book contains practical examples covering typical tasks related to virtual infrastructure management.
The book starts by providing an overview of the XenServer platform and Resource Pool concepts. Next, it covers user authentication and storage repositories management. The book then dives deep into topics such as virtual machine creation and management, management of XenServer memory and networking, snapshots, and High Availability features and monitoring.
Chapter 1, Introducing XenServer Resource Pools, begins with an overview of the XenServer history, Resources Pools overview, and requirements. Also, we will run through the process of Resource Pool creation and management.
Chapter 2, Managing User Authentication, covers user authentication management and Microsoft Active Directory integration. In this chapter, we will discover the Role Based Access Control feature and how to use it to assign roles and permissions to users in order to define different levels of administration.
Chapter 3, Managing Storage Repositories, introduces you to storage management. This chapter covers concepts regarding storage technologies and protocols and emphasizes the process of creating different types of storage repositories in XenServer.
Chapter 4, Creating Virtual Machines, gives you an overview of the virtual machine creation process. It also shows you how to install XenServer Tools, a set of paravirtualized drivers used to provide the best performance in your virtual machines.
Chapter 5, Managing Virtual Machines, covers typical tasks related to virtual machine management. We will see how to import and export a virtual machine, clone existing virtual machines, and create a custom template for deploying pre-configured servers. Also, the chapter highlights the process for converting a physical machine to a virtual machine.
Chapter 6, Managing XenServer and Virtual Machine Memory, enables the user to configure XenServer memory in order to provide best performance for virtual machines. The chapter also describes the Dynamic Memory Control feature and how to use this feature to dynamically allocate memory to virtual machines.
Chapter 7, Managing XenServer Networking, covers networking concepts and explains how to configure networking in XenServer. In the chapter, we will discover the Distributed vSwitch Controller that can be used to control the flow and performance of traffic sent to and from a virtual machine.
Chapter 8, Managing High Availability and Snapshots, shows how to configure the High Availability feature in order to ensure your virtual machines are always available and have an optimal level of service within a resource pool. In the chapter, you will discover the Snapshots feature that you can use to record a point-in-time state of a virtual machine, useful when you need to test an application update.
Chapter 9, Protecting and Monitoring XenServer, explains the aspects of backing up and monitoring a XenServer environment. The chapter also highlights the usage of VM Protection policies to have scheduled backups of virtual machines and introduces you to the Workload Balancing component, used for automating the virtual environment and monitoring performance.
Appendix A, Supported Guest Operating Systems and Virtual Machine Templates, gives you a quick reference of the supported guest operating systems and an overview of the virtual machine templates XenServer provides by default.
Appendix B, Applying Updates and Hotfixes, covers the process of installing updates and hotfixes on the XenServer virtual environment.
You will need one of the following operating systems:
Windows 7
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 R2
You will need the following software:
Citrix XenCenter 6.0
Citrix XenServer 6.0
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 (Required to run XenCenter)
For updated XenServer requirements, see the XenServer Installation Guide available at http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX130421.
If you are new to or you have a basic understanding of XenServer and you want to embrace the virtualization world, this book is for you.
The book assumes that you have a basic understanding of XenServer administration, but you need not have working experience with XenServer.
IT Consultants who want to approach XenServer as a virtualization platform will also find this book useful.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "Run the xe pool-join command on the new server to join the pool."
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
xe host-disable uuid=<host_uuid>
xe host-evacuate uuid=<host_uuid>
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Enter your details in the activation form, and then click on Submit."
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