Robert Maijen

Home Tech Articles Citrix XenServer Citrix XenServer 5: Upgrade of XenServer 5.0 to XenServer 5.5

This week a Login Consultants has released their newest tool related to Microsoft App-V. My collegue Peter Nap made it possible to load applications onto an USB device and have them imported into the App-V Client automatically. This is a pretty nifty way of managing and distributing your apps throughout your environment. Go here and register for a free download.

Citrix XenServer 5: Upgrade of XenServer 5.0 to XenServer 5.5
Written by Administrator   
Sunday, 21 June 2009 16:57

Hello All,

Today I have upgraded my personal XenServer 5 SP3 environment to XenServer 5.5. I was a bit skeptic on the upgrade part as I am relying a lot on this environment to work. Still I decided to give it a go and downloaded the free version of Citrix XenServer 5.5.

 

After shutting down my entire test environment I inserted the installation media, which was created on Cd-rom after downloading the ISO, I rebooted the Citrix XenServer. The installation immediately noticed the previous version so I only had to select “Upgrade” and the installation continued. After upgrading the storage it was time for the installation upgrade which all happened automated without any intervention from my part. After quit some time the server finally stated that the upgrade succeeded and that the server needed to reboot. Now I ran into some scary things as it took quite some time for the server to actually reboot and come back on-line but all my machines were still there, hmpffff.

So final step was to start every machine back up again and install the new version of the Citrix XenServer Tools. Another reboot and all servers are running fine and on the new version of Citrix XenServer 5.5.

So all in all no problem in upgrading the environment to Citrix XenServer 5.5. Just to keep in mind that when you also want to upgrade there us nice support section on the Citrix website if you might run into problems.

http://forums.citrix.com/category.jspa?categoryID=101

After upgrading the XenServer you should also update your XenCenter console to version 5.5. After the installation the interface has some new features:

 

For "Guests"

Folders

Each server can be placed into seperate folders or servers can be grouped in a single folder. Managing server on a file level made much easier:

 

 

Performance Monitoring

Performance monitorin has an improved interface. Still you cannot go back far in time as for that you will need to buy the XenServer Essentials.

 

Snapshots

You are now able to create snapshot of your virtual machines from the XenCenter Console. Finally :-)

 

 

For "Host"

NIC Management

More options on your network. It is possible to "Bond" multiple NIC's

 

Active Directory Integration

This I think is a really cool feature. Active Directory integration and delegation of control for AD Objects.

 

Off-course there are more new features together with some performance and other updates. Please let me know if you find any interesting ones.

 

Regards Robert

Comments

Name *
Email (For verification & Replies)
Code