I am pleased to announce that today we have made available the second alpha build for XenServer Dundee. For those of you who missed the first alpha, it was focused entirely on the move to CentOS 7 for dom0. This important operational change is one long time XenServer users and those who have written management tooling for XenServer should be aware of throughout the Dundee development cycle. At the time of Alpha 1, no mention was made for feature changes, and with Alpha 2 we’re going to talk about some features. So here are some of the important items to be aware of.
Thin Provisioning on block storage
For those who aren’t aware, when a XenServer SR is using iSCSI or an HBA, the virtual disks have always consumed their entire allocated space regardless of how utilized the actual virtual disk was. With Dundee we now have full thin provisioning for all block storage independent of storage vendor. In order to take advantage of this, you will need to indicate during SR creation that thin provisioning is required. You will also be given the opportunity to specify the default vdi allocation which allows users to optimize vdi utilization against storage performance. We do know about a number of areas still needing attention, but are providing early access such that the community can further identify issues our testing hasn’t yet encountered.
NFS version 4
While a simple enhancement, this was identified as a priority item during the Creedence previews last year. We didn’t really have the time then to fully implement it, but as of Dundee Alpha 2 you can specify NFS 4 for SR creation in XenCenter.
Intel GVT-d
XenServer 6.5 SP1 introduced support for Intel GVT-d graphics in Haswell and Broadwell chips. This support has been ported to Dundee and is now present in Alpha 2. At this point GPU operations in Dundee should have feature parity to XenServer 6.5 SP1.
CIFS for virtual disk storage
For some time we’ve had CIFS as an option for ISO storage, but lacked it for virtual disk storage. That has been remedied and if you are running CIFS you can now use it for all your XenServer storage needs.
Changed dom0 disk size
During installation of XenServer 6.5 and prior, a 4GB partition is created for dom0 with an additional 4GB partition created as a backup. For some users, the 4GB partition was too limiting, particularly if remote SYSLOG wasn’t used or when third party monitoring tools were installed in dom0. With Dundee we’ve completely changed the local storage layout for dom0, and this has significant implications for all users wishing to upgrade to Dundee.
New layout
The new partition layout will consume 46GB from local storage. If there is less than 46 GB available, then a fresh install will fail. The new partition layout will be as follows:
- 512 MB UEFI boot partition
- 18 GB dom0 partition
- 18 GB backup partition
- 4 GB logs partition
- 1 GB SWAP partition
As you can see from this new partition layout that we’ve separated logs and SWAP out of the main operating partition, and that we’re now supporting UEFI boot.
Upgrades
During upgrade, if there is at least 46 GB available, we will recreate the partition layout to match that of a fresh install. In the event 46GB isn’t available, we will shrink the existing dom0 partition from 4 GB to 3.5 GB and create the 512 MB UEFI boot partition.
Downloading Alpha 2
Dundee Alpha 2 is available for download from xenserver.org/prerelease
