One of the things that Xenserver, still lacks is decent patch management. VMware solved this in ESX3.5/VC2.5 with the “update manager” which is an awesome tool for updating your ESX Hosts. (Yes it can be used for Windows/Linux and applications, but it needs to be refined in my opinion.) Patching Xenserver is a manual job, but not for long. Citrix just announced a new feature for the upcoming Xenserver release, pool-wide patchmanagement.
Pool-wide patch management has been integrated into the product, and, in conjunction with a wizard in XenCenter, will allow you to:
- Check the Citrix XenServer website for updates
- Download any pending updates to your XenCenter system
- Choose which servers in your managed pools you wish to apply the patches to
- Put each server in maintenance mode (with their VMs kept online on another server via XenMotion)
- Apply the patches
- Bring the server back online and move VMs back to it automatically
All in a single guided process.
There should be a beta available soon. It’s good to see Citrix is bringing Xenserver up to speed. This competition/rivalry will eventually make all products better! Read it at the source.