Book Image

Citrix XenServer 6.0 Administration Essential Guide

By : Daniele Tosatto
Book Image

Citrix XenServer 6.0 Administration Essential Guide

By: Daniele Tosatto

Overview of this book

Virtualization helps an organization reduce costs and achieve low maintenance. It is fast becoming an important skill for all administrators. Citrix's XenServer is one of the leading virtualization solutions for enterprises and helps companies reduce costs while allowing them to integrate, automate and easily manage their datacenters. It comes with a steep learning curve, but the results are well worth the effort. This practical guide on XenServer administration shows you how to manage XenServer pools; create, configure and manage virtual machines and a datacenter. With the help of real-world examples in this book, you will be able to apply these concepts directly in your everyday life. Packed with author's tips and helpful advice; the book is your best choice for anything related to XenServer administration. This is the only book that focuses on the most vital aspect of XenServerñadministration. You don't have to struggle through the lesser-documented tasks anymore, this book will provide all the information you need to create and run a perfectly designed datacenter using XenServer.You will begin your journey towards becoming an expert XenServer administrator by configuring XenServer pools and managing role-based user authentication. Your next step is to create and manage virtual machines. In the following chapters you will learn to configure storage. The book discusses some of the more difficult tasks like configuring and managing VM memory. In the end you will be capable of handling your datacenter and virtual machines through a network, and you will learn how to monitor and backup your XenServer setup. All through the book, the author adds his helpful tips and advice that will help you choose the best options for your setup.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Citrix XenServer 6.0 Administration Essential Guide
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

XenServer memory overview


XenServer memory usage is based on how much physical memory exists on the server itself.

In the first chapter of the book, we have discussed the Resource Pools concepts and introduced the "Control Domain" virtual machine, also known as "Dom0".

Dom0 is a small and privileged virtual machine that Xen hypervisor loads when a host running XenServer starts up. The control domain runs the management tool stack and also provides low-level services to other VMs, such as providing physical access to devices.

When calculating the memory that XenServer uses, there are two components to consider. First is the memory that the XenServer virtualization engine known as Xen hypervisor uses. Second is the memory that the control domain uses.

Xen hypervisor uses a fixed amount of memory. This value is set to 128 MB. The Dom0 uses a variable amount of memory based on the total physical memory on the server.

The Dom0 reserves a minimum of 200 MB of memory, but does not use more than 752...