Citrix launched today the public beta of XenSevrer 5.6 (open source) and went under the guise of codename Midnight Ride and Essentials for XenServer 5.6
The list of new features includes:
- Dynamic Memory Control (DMC)
This feature can increase the number of VMs per host by permitting the memory utilisation of existing VMs to be compressed so that additional VMs can boot on the host. - Automated Workload Balancing & Power Management
Workload balancing (WLB) offers the ability to reduce power consumption by consolidating workloads on the smallest number of hosts and powering off unused hosts. - Granular Role-based Access Controls
Administrative users can be assigned one of several roles, which govern the actions they are able to complete from XenCenter and the command-line interface (CLI). - Administrative Logging and Audit
Administrative changes made from XenCenter or the CLI are logged and available in the Workload Reports in XenCenter. - StorageLink Site Recovery Enhanced integration with storage-level replication enables recovery of an entire virtual infrastructure at a secondary disaster recovery site.
- Citrix License Server integration.
Essentials for XenServer features are now activated using a license applied to a Citrix Licensing Server. - Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS/Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4
- Support for up to 64 logical processors, 256 GB RAM, and 16 NICs per host
- Support for OVF import/export in XenCenter
Of course the first two features are the most interesting.
Dynamic Memory Control (DMC), a memory overcommit technique, auto-adjust the memory of running virtual machines, but keeps the memory within a range of pre-defined functioning limits (dynamic minimum and dynamic maximum) as specified by the administrator.
Some interesting features in here!