Xen Orchestra 3.4

May 22, 2014

Hi everyone! Ready for a new release? Two great features:

  • A sign in page (no more public access, you should have at least a registered user). We've got "read" permission for people who want the same result than before.
  • An "end-to-end" event system (see below).

Hopefully the latest version before user permissions in Xen Orchestra ;)

Sign in page

This feature is quite simple to understand: before, you could access as a "guest" (non logged with only read permissions) and see the whole infrastructure.Now you can't, because you'll be dropped to the login page:

loginview

The green "check" icon on the bottom also indicates that you are connected to xo-server (via WebSockets). It will help to see quickly if it works. But you can add a "read" user with login/pass for just see the infrastructure without any rights on it:

read_only

We've got also a feature memorizing the page you want to go, event if you are not already logged, eg: someone give you a link to a VM, but you are not registered. You'll be going through the login page, but just after been successfully logged, you'll go automatically on the requested page.

New event system

This is the biggest new feature. And we are really excited to release it! In the first place, for getting latest information on XenServer, we sent requests every 1 or 2 seconds:

3.4

Trivial, but not scalable at all (imagine requesting everything on "n" Xen hosts...). That's why we introduced in a later version, events handling:

3.4_2

Scaling was possible, by just listening events from XenServer. But, the quest was not complete. Until now! Let's see the result:

3.4_3

This time, we've got also events between xo-server and xo-web. Why this is really important? Because due to this change, the web interface is now:

  • more reactive: as soon as a event occurs in a XenServer host, it will be broadcasted to every web clients connected!
  • more bandwidth friendly: only update what is needed when it's needed.
  • more CPU friendly on the client.
  • more scalable

About the bandwidth, with 1 pool, 2 hosts and 8 powered VM on 30, that's our average numbers before and after:

event

Test it, you'll see the difference. We also take advantage of the new release to fix small dependencies bug and optimize our release process. You can read the change log here.

Download or upgrade

You can download the full appliance, or upgrade from your existing installation with a service xo update in your appliance.

Demo

The demo is now accessible with user "demo" and password "demo". Enjoy :)

Olivier Lambert

Vates CEO & co-founder, Xen Orchestra and XCP-ng project creator. Enthusiast entrepreneur and Open Source advocate. A very happy Finnish Lapphund owner.