XenCenter

Licensing Overview

XenServer 8 is available in the following editions:

  • Trial Edition
  • Standard Edition
  • Premium Edition

The Standard Edition is our entry-level commercial offering. It includes a range of features that deliver a robust and high performing virtualization platform, but not the premium features offered by the Premium Edition. With Standard Edition, you can still benefit from the assurance of comprehensive Technical Support and Maintenance.

The Premium Edition is our premium offering, optimized for both server, desktop and cloud workloads. In addition to the Standard Edition, the Premium Edition offers the following features:

  • Dynamic Workload Balancing
  • GPU virtualization with NVIDIA vGPU
  • Thin provisioning for shared block storage devices
  • Support for SMB storage
  • Direct Inspect APIs
  • Export pool resource data
  • In-memory read caching
  • PVS-Accelerator
  • Enablement for Citrix Virtual Desktops tablet mode
  • Changed block tracking
  • IGMP snooping
  • USB pass-through
  • SR-IOV network support
  • Monitor host and dom0 resources with NRPE
  • Monitor host and dom0 resources with SNMP

    If you use XenServer to run your Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops or Citrix DaaS workloads, you must have a Premium Edition license. XenServer is now an entitlement of the Citrix for Private Cloud, Citrix Universal Hybrid Multi-Cloud, Citrix Universal MSP, and Citrix Platform License subscriptions for running your Citrix workloads. Read more.

The Trial Edition (XenServer 8 only) gives you access to all Premium Edition features in a restricted pool of 3 or fewer hosts. You can use Trial Edition for 90 days before it expires. After this 90-day period expires, you cannot start VMs on your Trial Edition host or pool.

Citrix Licensing

XenServer uses the same licensing process as other Citrix products and as such requires a valid license to be installed on a License Server. You can download the License Server from Citrix Licensing. After purchasing the license for your XenServer, you will receive a .LIC license access code. Install this license access code on a Windows server running the Citrix License Server software.

When you assign a license to your XenServer host, XenServer contacts the specified Citrix License Server and requests a license for the specified servers. If successful, a license is checked out. The License Manager displays information about the license the hosts are licensed under.

When you request or apply licenses, information about the XenServer version and license type might be transmitted to Citrix. No other information relating to users, VMs, or the XenServer environment is collected or transmitted to Citrix. The limited information transmitted to Citrix during the licensing process is handled in accordance with our privacy policy. For more information, see our privacy policy.

Licensing XenServer servers

XenServer does not support partial licensing, all servers in a pool must be licensed. If your XenServer pool contains servers that are licensed with different license types, the lowest license applies to the whole pool. Mixed pools of licensed and unlicensed hosts behave as if all hosts were unlicensed. For information on managing licenses in XenServer, see Managing XenServer Licenses.

Upgrades to the Premium Edition are available from the Standard edition. For detailed information about XenServer licensing, see Licensing. To upgrade or to get a XenServer license, visit the Citrix website.

License expiry

XenCenter notifies you when your license is due to expire. Purchase a license before it expires. When your XenServer license expires:

  • XenCenter License Manager displays the status as Unlicensed.
  • You cannot access licensed features or receive Technical Support for any server within the pool until you purchase another license.
  • If you are using XenServer 8, you are running Trial Edition and can use the features provided by that edition for 90 days before your Trial Edition license expires.

License grace period

If your licensed XenServer host cannot contact the License Server, the server lapses into a 30-day licensing grace period. During the grace period, XenServer licenses itself through cached information. The servers are allowed to continue operations as if they are still in communication with the License Server. The grace period is 30 days and when the grace period runs out, XenServer reverts to an unlicensed state. After communication is re-established between XenServer and the License Server, the grace period is reset.

XenServer 8

Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 Cumulative Update 1

Licensing Overview