What is XenServer Premium?
The enterprise hypervisor included in Citrix Universal HMC delivering high performance, secure virtualisation infrastructure
Modern enterprises require virtualisation platforms that deliver exceptional performance, comprehensive security, and simplified management whilst supporting diverse workloads from virtual desktops to mission-critical applications. XenServer Premium, included within Citrix Universal Hybrid Multi-Cloud (UHMC), provides enterprise-grade virtualisation capabilities that eliminate traditional licensing constraints whilst delivering the performance, security, and management features required for demanding production environments.
What exactly is XenServer Premium?
XenServer Premium consists of multiple integrated virtualisation capabilities that provide comprehensive infrastructure management:
Type-1 Hypervisor provides bare-metal virtualisation with minimal overhead and maximum performance. The Xen hypervisor delivers industry-leading security through hardware-enforced isolation and proven architecture used by major cloud providers worldwide.
Advanced Storage Integration supports local storage, shared storage, and software-defined storage with features including live storage migration, automated storage tiering, and comprehensive backup integration. Storage XenMotion enables seamless VM migration between different storage types without downtime.
High Availability and Disaster Recovery provides automated failover, live migration, and disaster recovery capabilities that ensure business continuity. Advanced features include workload balancing, maintenance mode automation, and cross-site disaster recovery.
Comprehensive Management Tools include XenCenter for Windows-based management, command-line interfaces for automation, and REST APIs for integration with third-party management platforms. Advanced monitoring and alerting ensure proactive infrastructure management.
GPU Virtualisation and Pass-Through enables graphics-intensive workloads including CAD, engineering applications, and virtual desktop infrastructure with GPU acceleration. Support for NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel graphics with flexible allocation models.
How XenServer Premium works in practice
XenServer Premium operates as the foundational virtualisation layer that hosts your virtual machines, applications, and services with enterprise-grade performance and reliability. Unlike basic hypervisors that provide minimal features, XenServer Premium includes advanced capabilities that simplify management whilst ensuring optimal performance.
For example, when deploying a new virtual machine, XenServer Premium can automatically select the optimal host based on current resource utilisation, configure high availability policies, and establish backup schedules. If hardware maintenance is required, live migration capabilities move running VMs to other hosts without user impact or service interruption.
The platform’s integration with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops provides optimised performance for virtual desktop infrastructure, including advanced features like GPU sharing, memory optimisation, and storage acceleration that deliver superior user experiences.
Essential Guide Webinar: On Demand
Maximising the value of NetScaler in Citrix Universal HMC – lessons from the field
Proven enterprise scalability
XenServer Premium supports virtualisation requirements from small businesses to large enterprise data centres:
Unlimited Socket Licensing: Citrix UHMC removes traditional per-socket licensing constraints, enabling organisations to fully utilise their hardware investments without additional licensing costs as infrastructure grows.
Scalable Architecture: Support for large-scale deployments with resource pools, distributed storage, and automated load balancing across multiple hosts and data centres.
Multi-Site Management: Consistent management and policies across multiple data centres with centralised monitoring and automated disaster recovery capabilities.
This scalability ensures XenServer Premium can support your most demanding workloads whilst providing room for growth without architectural changes or licensing renegotiations.
What problems does XenServer Premium solve?
VMware Licensing Costs: VMware’s per-socket and per-VM licensing creates unpredictable costs that increase with infrastructure growth. XenServer Premium provides unlimited socket licensing within Citrix UHMC, eliminating licensing constraints.
Complex Virtualisation Management: Managing multiple hypervisor platforms increases complexity and operational overhead. XenServer Premium provides comprehensive management tools that simplify operations whilst maintaining enterprise capabilities.
Performance Bottlenecks: Basic hypervisors often lack advanced performance optimisation features. XenServer Premium includes workload balancing, memory optimisation, and storage acceleration that maximise infrastructure utilisation.
Limited High Availability: Basic virtualisation platforms provide minimal failover capabilities. XenServer Premium includes comprehensive high availability, live migration, and disaster recovery features.
GPU Virtualisation Challenges: Supporting graphics-intensive applications in virtualised environments is complex. XenServer Premium provides advanced GPU virtualisation and pass-through capabilities for demanding workloads.
Vendor Lock-In Concerns: Proprietary virtualisation platforms create dependency risks. XenServer Premium provides open standards support and migration capabilities that maintain flexibility.
What does XenServer Premium replace?
XenServer Premium directly replaces or consolidates several traditional virtualisation solutions:
- VMware vSphere Standard/Enterprise: VMware’s enterprise virtualisation platform
- Microsoft Hyper-V: Windows-based virtualisation solutions
- Nutanix AHV: Hyper-converged virtualisation platforms
- Red Hat Virtualisation: Enterprise Linux virtualisation
- Oracle VM: Oracle’s virtualisation platform
- Proxmox VE: Open-source virtualisation solutions
- Separate Backup Solutions: Dedicated VM backup and recovery tools
- Storage Management Tools: Separate storage provisioning and management platforms
- GPU Virtualisation Add-ons: Third-party GPU sharing and management solutions
Quantifiable cost savings
The financial benefits of XenServer Premium within Citrix UHMC are substantial:
Citrix UHMC Value Accelerator Workshop
Ready to modernise your virtualisation infrastructure?
The Citrix UHMC advantage
As part of Citrix UHMC, XenServer Premium isn’t just another hypervisor – it’s an integrated component of your complete digital workspace infrastructure. This integration provides:
- Optimised Citrix performance: Native integration with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops provides superior performance and features compared to third-party hypervisors
- Unified management: Consistent management experience across virtualisation, application delivery, and security components through integrated tools
- Comprehensive monitoring: uberAgent provides deep visibility into hypervisor performance and its impact on user experience
- Simplified licensing: Single Citrix UHMC license covers virtualisation, application delivery, security, and management without complex per-socket calculations
- Integrated security: deviceTRUST and other security components provide comprehensive protection for virtualised workloads
Rather than managing separate hypervisor, backup, storage management, and monitoring solutions from multiple vendors, Citrix UHMC with XenServer Premium provides a complete, integrated virtualisation platform that reduces complexity whilst dramatically improving performance and management efficiency.
Interesting?
Get in touch to learn more about how XenServer Premium can improve service agility, performance and RoI. Call 0330 010 3443 or mail hello@clouddnagroup.com.
