Virtualization using XenEnterprise with Dell PowerEdge Servers and ...

able to consolidate Windows servers secure in the knowledge that their use is supported by
Microsoft. 1
3 XenEnterprise
3.1 Product Introduction
The XenServer product family delivers to the mainstream market the power of Xen
paravirtualization in a full featured, enterprise ready, and easy-to-use virtualization
solution. It is the industry’s first open, enterprise class virtualization platform enabling
multiple levels of consolidation across the mainstream server continuum. It incorporates
the Xen hypervisor, easy to use installers for Xen and guests, Physical to Virtual (P2V)
conversion tools for virtualization of existing server operating system installations, and a
multi-server management console in a single affordable package.
3.2 Product Features
XenEnterprise is a virtualization platform for multiple guest operating systems (Windows
and Linux) that:
• Supports both paravirtualized and fully virtualized guests
• Uses Intel VT or AMD-V hardware virtualization assist available on all Dell 9th
generation servers to run Windows and other unmodified guests
• Delivers fast paravirtualized I/O for all guests
• Enables Windows guests with support from Microsoft for their Premier Support
customers
XenEnterprise brings all of the benefits of Xen paravirtualization to the multi-OS
virtualization market, meeting the IT department need for support of legacy Windows and
Linux, and the upcoming releases of operating systems with paravirtualization support
from Microsoft and enterprise Linux vendors.
The product leverages the hardware assisted virtualization features of Intel VT and AMD-
V processors to virtualize Windows. The offering includes enhancements for legacy
operating systems, offering the benefits of Xen paravirtualization to every guest virtual
server.
The combination of paravirtualization and hardware-assisted virtualization, coupled with
the enhanced disk and network drivers for Windows supplied in XenEnterprise, can deliver
performance that is comparable to the performance of other leading virtualization platforms
across a broad range of Windows benchmarks. In Linux benchmarks, reported
paravirtualization speedups exhibited by Linux guests have been seen in double-digit
percentage improvements over traditional binary translation virtualization.) For a detailed
performance analysis, refer to the white paper entitled “A Performance Comparison of
Commercial Hypervisors.” at http://www.xensource.com/performancepaper200703.
1 XenSource Press Release: http://www.xensource.com/news/pr040306.html
Dell Inc. 5 www.dell.com/virtualization