About XenServer 8
With XenServer 8, frequent updates are made available to you in XenCenter, allowing you to benefit from a more efficient release process that delivers new features and bug fixes at a faster cadence than was previously possible. This preview enables you to experience the frequent update model for administering updates to your XenServer pools and hosts.
Is XenServer 8 for me?
For the first part of its lifecycle, XenServer 8 provides a stream of frequent and easy-to-apply updates, which enable you to consume new features and bug fixes at the earliest possible juncture. You must apply all of the available updates periodically. As a result, the behavior and feature set in XenServer 8 can change.
Later, XenServer 8 declares Long Term Service Release (LTSR). At this point, changes to the feature set are limited and XenServer 8 remains stable. For more information, see XenServer lifecycle.
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If you want to try the latest features from XenServer and can regularly update your hosts and pools, XenServer 8 is for you. Get it here.
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If you require a guarantee of stability in terms of the feature set within XenServer, we recommend that you stay on Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 Cumulative Update 1 until XenServer 8 declares LTSR.
Release stream
The XenServer 8 release stream and the content delivery network (CDN) work together to enable you to apply frequent updates to your XenServer hosts and pools from XenCenter.
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We make frequent updates available for XenServer 8 in our secure CDN.
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In XenCenter, see when updates are available for your pool.
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Using XenCenter, initiate the process of applying updates to your XenServer pool.
Update channels
The XenServer 8 release stream consists of two phases, also referred to as update channels:
- Early Access
- Normal
To receive frequent updates, configure your XenServer pool to subscribe to one of those update channels.
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When updates are first pushed to our CDN, they enter the Early Access update channel.
Early Access is perfect for test environments, allowing you to get the latest updates as soon as they’re released to the public. By opting into receiving updates early, you have the opportunity to trial them before they’re made available to the Normal update channel.
Note:
Early Access will be supported for production use. However, we do not recommend it for critical production environments.
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These updates then flow sequentially into Normal, the next update channel.
Unless we have delayed this progression, you can expect to see Early Access updates become available in Normal on a regular cadence. Normal is recommended for production environments.
Occasionally, you might see updates become available to both your Early Access and Normal pools at the same time. These updates enable us to deliver security patches and critical fixes to all update channels immediately.
XenCenter
The XenServer 8 preview requires the latest version of XenCenter, which has a version number of the form “XenCenter 2023.x.x”. Previous versions of XenCenter, such as XenCenter 8.2.x, are not supported with XenServer 8.
XenCenter 2023.x.x is not yet supported for production use. After the preview period, XenCenter 2023.x.x will be supported for use in production with both XenServer 8 and Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 CU1.
Get started
Steps to use this preview: