Follow this Procedure:

On a Local Storage, iSCSI, or Fibre Channel SR please complete the following:

Retrieve the Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) of the SR USING the xe sr-list command, which can be modified. xe sr-list | more displays a page at a time as opposed to the previous command which scrolls off in a long listing. Another option is to filter by type. The following screen shot uses type=lvm. Other filters are type=lvmoiscsi for iSCSI and type=lvmohba for Fibre Channel.

Once you have the UUID of the SR that you want to create a raw LVM virtual disk image (VDI) for, use the following command where you use the parameter “sm-config:type=raw”:

xe vdi-create sm-config:type=raw sr-uuid=687a023b-0b20-5e5f-d1ef-3db777ce7ae4 name-label="My Raw LVM VDI" virtual-size=8GiB type=user

The command completes when you see a new UUID for the new VDI:
556cf57b-8a1d-4211-8daf-6157956cac46

Once complete, you can see that the new VDI has a different label than other VDIs. Thereis “LV-<uuid of the VDI> as in the following lvdisplay | more command:

Attach this VDI to a new VM or an existing one, if needed. Note: When creating and using RAW logical volumes instead of VHD based logical volumes that all ability to take snapshots/clones of virtual disk images.
On the Storage Tab of the SR, you should see a new unformatted VDI:

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Evaluation Based on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Citrix Systems, Inc. today announced it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the Visionaries quadrant of the “Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure."

“Citrix XenServer has gained tremendous traction in the last year, beginning with the introduction of the enormously popular free edition,” said N. Louis Shipley, Group VP and GM, XenServer Product Group, Citrix. “That alone prompted more than 45,000 enterprise datacenters and cloud vendors worldwide - including 45 percent of the Fortune 500 - to activate XenServer for production. In addition, our Advanced, Enterprise and Premium editions are continuing to deliver on that value by providing all of the server virtualization and private cloud capabilities customers require at a fraction of the cost. And cloud providers are realizing the value, as well – Rackspace, the second largest cloud vendor in the world, just standardized their next-generation cloud strategy on XenServer². The richness and value of the XenServer portfolio is increasingly driving very demanding and technically savvy organizations to standardize on XenServer.”

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Here is a quick overview of the new features of XenServer 5.6:

• New Licensing for XenServer. Licensing for XenServer paid editions has changed. XenServer 5.6 Advanced Edition or higher requires a Citrix License Server (11.6 or higher) to run. To license these editions, you must configure Citrix Licensing and the licensing settings inside each XenServer host. An overview of licensing XenServer, including required settings, is in the Citrix XenServer 5.6 Installation Guide.For information about obtaining license files and installing a license server, navigate to the Citrix
• Role-based Access Controls. Administrative users can be assigned one of several roles, which determine which actions different types of administrators can perform in your XenServer environment.

• Dynamic Memory Control. DMC lets you change the amount of memory assigned to a virtual machine without rebooting it. DMC also lets you start additional VMs on a full host by automatically reducing the memory allocated to existing VMs in order to make space. After shutting down VMs or migrating them to another host, remaining VMs can reclaim unused physical host memory.

• Enhanced VM Snapshots. It is now possible to create full VM snapshots including the disk and memory state. An enhanced snapshots tab in XenCenter allows snapshots to be presented in a convenient "tree view". Virtual machines can be easily rolled back to prior snapshot states with a "revert to snapshot" option.

• Automated Workload Balancing and Power Management. Workload Balancing now lets you automatically apply VM optimization recommendations (that is, balance workloads based on your preconfigured preferences) and power off automatically during low usage periods. This lets you reduce power consumption by consolidating workloads on the smallest number of hosts and powering off unused hosts. Power Management features include support for wake-on-LAN and vendor-specific implementations from HP and Dell.

• Administrative Logging and Audit. Administrative changes made from XenCenter or the CLI are logged (by username, date, time, etc) and available in the Workload Reports in XenCenter. Note: this requires installation of the Workload Balancing feature to enable the database which captures these logs.

• StorageLink Site Recovery. Enhanced integration with storage-level replication enables recovery of an entire virtual infrastructure at a secondary disaster recovery site.

• Increased performance and scale. Support limits have been doubled to 64 logical processors, 256 GB RAM, and 16 NICs per host.

• Enhanced XenCenter interface. The XenCenter administrative user interface has been enhanced in a number of areas. New features include enhanced wizards for new VM creation, VM import, new Storage Repository creation, Alerts and Logs; multi-select options; multiple DVD drives per VM; and graphic design improvements.The Updates Manager is also newly improved.

• Enhanced OS support. XenServer 5.6 now supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS/Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3.

• Add to Pools Over Time.XenServer now supports a mixture of processors from the same vendor in pools, provided these vendors employ CPU "masking" or "leveling" technology. In XenServer, this is known as Heterogeneous Pool support.

• OVF Support. Experimental features within XenCenter to support exporting and importing OVF-based virtual appliances.

• Disk Image Support.Experimental features to support directly importing standalone VMWare VMDK, Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (VHD), Virtual Disk Image (VDI), and Windows Imaging Format (WIM) disk images into XenServer.

Click here to read more about XenServer

Click here to download XenServer 5.6 now

Here is what's new:

New features in XenServer 5.6
XenServer 5.6 includes a number of new features and ongoing improvements, including:

• New Licensing for XenServer. Licensing for XenServer paid editions has changed. XenServer 5.6 Advanced Edition or higher requires a Citrix License Server (11.6 or higher) to run. To license these editions, you must configure Citrix Licensing and the licensing settings inside each XenServer host. An overview of licensing XenServer, including required settings, is in the Citrix XenServer 5.6 Installation Guide.For information about obtaining license files and installing a license server, navigate to the Citrix
• Role-based Access Controls. Administrative users can be assigned one of several roles, which determine which actions different types of administrators can perform in your XenServer environment.

• Dynamic Memory Control. DMC lets you change the amount of memory assigned to a virtual machine without rebooting it. DMC also lets you start additional VMs on a full host by automatically reducing the memory allocated to existing VMs in order to make space. After shutting down VMs or migrating them to another host, remaining VMs can reclaim unused physical host memory.

• Enhanced VM Snapshots. It is now possible to create full VM snapshots including the disk and memory state. An enhanced snapshots tab in XenCenter allows snapshots to be presented in a convenient "tree view". Virtual machines can be easily rolled back to prior snapshot states with a "revert to snapshot" option.

• Automated Workload Balancing and Power Management. Workload Balancing now lets you automatically apply VM optimization recommendations (that is, balance workloads based on your preconfigured preferences) and power off automatically during low usage periods. This lets you reduce power consumption by consolidating workloads on the smallest number of hosts and powering off unused hosts. Power Management features include support for wake-on-LAN and vendor-specific implementations from HP and Dell.

• Administrative Logging and Audit. Administrative changes made from XenCenter or the CLI are logged (by username, date, time, etc) and available in the Workload Reports in XenCenter. Note: this requires installation of the Workload Balancing feature to enable the database which captures these logs.

• StorageLink Site Recovery. Enhanced integration with storage-level replication enables recovery of an entire virtual infrastructure at a secondary disaster recovery site.

• Increased performance and scale. Support limits have been doubled to 64 logical processors, 256 GB RAM, and 16 NICs per host.

• Enhanced XenCenter interface. The XenCenter administrative user interface has been enhanced in a number of areas. New features include enhanced wizards for new VM creation, VM import, new Storage Repository creation, Alerts and Logs; multi-select options; multiple DVD drives per VM; and graphic design improvements.The Updates Manager is also newly improved.

• Enhanced OS support. XenServer 5.6 now supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS/Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3.

• Add to Pools Over Time.XenServer now supports a mixture of processors from the same vendor in pools, provided these vendors employ CPU "masking" or "leveling" technology. In XenServer, this is known as Heterogeneous Pool support.

• OVF Support. Experimental features within XenCenter to support exporting and importing OVF-based virtual appliances.

• Disk Image Support.Experimental features to support directly importing standalone VMWare VMDK, Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (VHD), Virtual Disk Image (VDI), and Windows Imaging Format (WIM) disk images into XenServer.

Click here to read more about XenServer and download XenServer 5.6 when it hits the download goodness

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Fluid Data Increases Efficiency in Citrix and Microsoft Virtualized Environments

Through the Compellent Storage Adapter for Citrix StorageLink, users can:

• Fully provision storage volumes for Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer virtual machines using thin provisioning, which provides the highest storage utilization possible by eliminating allocated but unused capacity.
• Rapidly create, map and recover virtual machines leveraging Compellent space-efficient server mapping and snapshot capabilities.
• Support seamless XenServer or Hyper-V virtual machine migration with either Fibre Channel or iSCSI connectivity to Compellent virtualized storage.

Site Recovery Showcase at Citrix Synergy™

• The new Citrix StorageLink Site Recovery dramatically simplifies the setup and configuration of disaster recovery protection of Microsoft Hyper-V workloads through integration with Compellent’s continuous snapshots and thin replication technologies.
• Compellent will demonstrate its Site Recovery capability for Citrix StorageLink at the Compellent booth no. 300 during Citrix Synergy in San Francisco, May 12-14, 2010.
• Compellent Storage Center Storage Adapter is certified and listed on Citrix StorageLink hardware compatibility list at http://hcl.xensource.com/SLG-HCLHome.aspx.

Click to Tweet: Compellent expands StorageLink certification with Citrix to optimize internal clouds environments and deliver fluid data to the cloud: http://bit.ly/d3gHor.

Quotes

• Bruce Kornfeld, Vice President of Marketing and Alliances, Compellent: “The combination of Compellent Storage Center and Citrix StorageLink is the next logical step for enterprises seeking to maximize storage and server assets and lower costs in highly virtualized environments. Fluid Data storage is a natural fit for enterprises building the foundation for next-generation cloud computing in their data centers.”
• Benn Schreiber, Director of Business Development, Citrix Systems: “Compellent’s Fluid Data architecture is a perfect complement for enterprises looking to extend the cloud computing capabilities of their data centers. Compellent’s integration with Citrix StorageLink makes virtual infrastructures more efficient and easier to manage with next generation storage capabilities such as space efficient thin provisioning and continuous snapshots.”

Pricing and Availability

• Compellent Storage Adapter is included at no cost with Citrix StorageLink 2.2 or greater, expected from Citrix by June 2010.
• The download for Compellent Storage Adapter will be available from the Citrix website.
• Citrix StorageLink Site Recovery will be supported and available for Compellent end-users by Q4 2010.

Additional Information

• Compellent and Citrix Ready Alliance information page
• Video demo: Citrix StorageLink integration with Compellent
• Twitter newsfeed: @Compellent
• “Around the Block” Blog
• Compellent Newsroom
  

About Compellent

Compellent Technologies (NYSE: CML) provides Fluid Data storage solutions that automate the movement and management of data at a granular level, enabling organizations to constantly adapt to change, slash costs and secure information against downtime and disaster. This patented, built-in storage intelligence delivers significant efficiency, scalability and flexibility. With an all-channel sales network in 35 countries, Compellent is one of the fastest growing enterprise storage companies in the world. For more information and news, visit www.compellent.com and www.compellent.com/news.

SAN FRANCISCO » 5/13/2010 » Today at Citrix Synergy 2010, the conference where virtualization, networking and cloud computing meet, Citrix Systems, Inc.  announced the availability of the latest Citrix XenServer release, which delivers additional features across the product line, enhancing the enterprise-ready, cloud-proven virtualization platform with all the capabilities needed to create and manage a virtual infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of competing products.  The new XenServer 5.6 delivers enhanced virtualization management capabilities for both the free XenServer, as well as the more advanced Enterprise and Platinum editions.  Citrix also introduced a new low-priced XenServer Advanced Edition, making it easier for enterprise and cloud customers running free XenServer to add more advanced high availability and management capabilities at a fraction of the cost of competing solutions.

Citrix surprised many in the server virtualization industry last year when it unveiled an enterprise-ready, cloud-proven version of XenServer available at no cost, setting an entirely new standard for free virtualization with powerful features such as centralized multi-node management, multi-server resource sharing and full live migration.  The move was part of a strategy to accelerate the rate of datacenter virtualization, monetizing more advanced virtualization management features only when customers are ready to expand their virtual datacenter deployments.  Making the core XenServer product free also allowed Citrix to deliver advanced virtualization management solutions on top of both XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V, the two fastest-growing virtualization platforms, each targeting unique customer segments.

Customer reaction to this move was overwhelmingly positive, with XenServer activated for production use in more than 45,000 enterprise datacenters worldwide to date, including 45 percent of the Fortune 500.  Based on analyst estimates and current download and activation numbers, Citrix expects XenServer market share - which more than doubled in 2009 - will increase to 18 percent by the end of 2010.  In addition to this growing traction in datacenter and cloud deployments, XenServer has also been selected as the back-end virtual infrastructure for approximately 40 percent of all Citrix XenDesktop VDI implementations.

Key Facts and Highlights:
XenServer 5.6 adds multiple new features designed to address the common challenges faced by IT administrators when managing virtual environments, including:

• The XenServer 5.6 Free edition enhances the existing enterprise features to extend the limits of host memory, CPU, network and operating system support.  While the free edition already provides a rich feature set for enterprises to deploy and centrally manage full enterprise-class virtualization on any number of servers with no upfront costs, the enhancements in XenServer 5.6 enable virtualization users to achieve greater server consolidation ratios, flexibility and best-in-class VM density for server, cloud and desktop workloads.
• The new XenServer 5.6 Advanced edition includes everything in the free edition, as well as dynamic memory control, high availability and a host of advanced reporting and alerting capabilities.  The Advanced edition is designed to provide a simple and cost-effective solution for enterprise customers and cloud providers to deliver highly available application services from their virtual infrastructure.
• New and enhanced capabilities added to XenServer 5.6 Enterprise include automated workload balancing, host power management, advanced storage integration with StorageLink™, live memory snapshots and role based administration.  The Enterprise edition has been the primary choice for a majority of XenServer customers because it builds on the enterprise-ready, cloud-proven free edition to enable customers to integrate directly with a wide range of enterprise storage environments.  The new XenServer 5.6 Enterprise Edition not only expands StorageLink™ support, but also adds new features to existing storage management capabilities, enabling customers to optimize application performance, reduce power consumption and define detailed access rules and roles for managing virtualization infrastructures.
• XenServer 5.6 Platinum extends the free, Advanced and Enterprise editions to deliver a suite of IT automation capabilities that help administrators accelerate the delivery of IT services that drive the business. Specifically, XenServer 5.6 adds StorageLink SiteRecovery and a self-service portal extension to Lab Manager. The new SiteRecovery technology provides an automated way to recover from a datacenter outage through a single console that leverages the native capabilities of a customer’s existing storage array. The self-service portal enables employees to quickly access needed IT resources, allowing them to create new environments or use an existing virtual environment, along with on-demand documentation.

Availability and Pricing
XenServer 5.6 will be available on May 28.  The new XenServer Advanced Edition is $1,000 per server, or $30 per month for cloud service providers.  The Enterprise and Platinum Editions are $2,500 and $5,000 per server, respectively.

Quotes
N. Louis Shipley, Group VP and GM, XenServer Product Group, Citrix Systems
“With the introduction of XenServer Advanced optimized for XenDesktop and dynamic memory control, virtualization and cloud computing are now more accessible to enterprise organizations, regardless of their IT budget.  And with a subscription-based pricing option, it opens up new markets for cloud service providers, enabling them to leverage an enterprise-scalable platform for delivering innovative services to companies of any size.  We anticipate the new enterprise-scalable Advanced Edition, along with enhancements across the entire product line in XenServer 5.6, will be key contributors to our continued market share growth in the server virtualization space.”

Al Gillen, program VP, System Software, IDC
“The market share growth for XenServer indicates that offering a full-featured free product was seen by customers as more than a publicity move by Citrix, and the free version has become entryway for new virtualization customers.  We are increasingly seeing vendors use a free plus premium offering strategy to build market share and momentum for a variety of infrastructure software products.  XenServer Enterprise and Platinum editions provide the additional features that virtualization customers will look to as their virtualization deployments expand and mature.”

Tomas Kadlec, Head of IT Architecture, Tesco
“Citrix XenServer has become the Tesco global infrastructure standard, providing a key building block that gives us a competitive advantage across all of our business units, including Tesco Retail, Tesco.com, Tesco Bank and most recently Tesco International.  To date, we have more than 3,500 production workload virtual machines and close to 1,000 physical blades running with XenServer, which has helped us to consolidate our servers and decrease our datacenter power consumption by 80 percent.”

Known Issues

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PHD Virtual Technologies, pioneer and innovator in backup and recovery for virtual machines announced today the PHD Virtual Xpress Backup for Citrix XenServer. The new backup and recovery solution is purpose-built for the growing number of virtualized XenServer environments and is certified Citrix Ready. Customers will be able to get their first look at the product during the upcoming Citrix Synergy, Booth 600, San Francisco, May 12-14.

"We are pleased that Citrix has demonstrated their confidence in our ability to deliver high performance, cost-effective and reliable backup and recovery solutions for customers with large virtualized environments," said Thomas Charlton, Chairman and CEO of PHD Virtual Technologies. "Our customers, formerly exclusive users of VMware, are embracing Citrix virtualization technologies such as XenServer and XenDesktop so it is necessary for PHD Virtual to respond with technology that meets the requirements of our heterogeneous customers."

"This announcement is a great example of the momentum we are seeing with our server virtualization ecosystem partners," said Lou Shipley, VP and GM, XenServer Product Group, Citrix Systems. "PHD recognizes the value of XenServer and rapidly developed an enterprise backup solution to meet the needs of the growing server virtualization market. We look forward to working with PHD and other virtualization management partners."

PHD Virtual Backup for Citrix XenServer builds on the robust legacy of the award-winning esXpress 4.0. PHD Virtual’s products meet enterprise requirements for flexibility and scalability by using the virtual appliance itself to perform backups, in less time, more reliably, and at a lower cost. They are the only enterprise data protection solutions that operate independent of the hypervisor offering greater stability and more security. PHD Virtual also provides a collaborative path to integrate with all major physical backup solutions (including products from Data Domain, Quantum, Symantec, EMC, HP, IBM, etc.) for end-to-end data protection throughout the enterprise. Today, thousands of customers worldwide trust their mission critical data to PHD Virtual’s solutions.

Using PHD Virtual Backup for Citrix XenServer, customers will enjoy the benefits of:

• The fastest and most cost effective backup that minimizes storage requirements
• The most reliable solution for data integrity with source-side deduplication and enhanced self healing backups
• And since PHD Virtual products will support both XenServer and XenDesktop®, customers can leverage the same solutions across their virtual environment.

PHD Virtual Backup for Citrix XenServer will be commercially available in September.