Xen Orchestra 5.45

In the difficult context of COVID-19's pandemic, our team, confined at home is still working to deliver a reliable and flexible web interface for you to manage your virtual infrastructure from any device and from anywhere!

This month, we deliver a very interesting and exclusive feature: RAM enabled backup. This feature works exclusively with the most recent version of XCP-ng: 8.1.

Remember, as usual, all the new features are available first on the latest release branch in Xen Orchestra and will come in the stable branch for the next release.

XCP-ng 8.1 is available

The latest version of XCP-ng is now available. Performance improvements, security patches and new features embedded directly in the virtualization platform, you can check all the major highlights on this release blogpost.

Among new features, the support for RAM enabled backup is natively supported in XCP-ng 8.1.

RAM enabled backup

Note: RAM enabled backup is still an experimental feature, we do not recommend it to be used in a production environment yet.

It will allow you to perform backup in which we will also export the RAM contents in order to avoid corruption of the backup file. This is especially useful when it comes to database backup (as MS SQL or Active Directory VMs).

This also means less time to resume your VM: no OS boot time, you are just resuming at the same you were during the backup. No session or context loss.

Our developer, Benjamin, wrote a dedicated DevBlog on this feature.

RAM backup is (for now) only compatible with XCP-ng 8.1. It's already in testing repo of XCP-ng 8.0, so expect it soon there.

XO Proxy - Network configuration

Xen Orchestra Proxies are expected to be ready for production for the April release. Until that moment, proxies are still in release candidate and you can deploy and test them for free.

This month, we added network configuration during the proxy deployment phase.

Audit log - integrity check

We improved the integrity check in the Audit Log feature. You will now have contextualization available for errors during the check to provide more insight about the issue (missing, altered...).

Backup list for each VM

For each VM, you will have a new view, in which you will find a list of backup jobs in which your VM is currently enrolled.

This will allow users to get an easy view of the current backup state for a particular VM and, eventually, avoid backing up a VM multiple times for no reason.

This new view is part of a milestone we are currently working on, to provide to users accessible and fast ways to check the backup situation in their infrastructure. More is coming around that idea in the next release. Stay tuned

Migration enhancements

Migrate VDI from SR's view

We have added an option to allow you to migrate VDIs directly from the SR's view.

Migration network

You can now, optionally, select a migration network when you migrate a VM, even within a pool.

Better license management system for XOA

Note: Binding (or not) your licenses will not be a problem for your Xen Orchestra immediately after the update. You will have until the June release to bind all your Xen Orchestra Appliances or proxies with a valid license.

We are introducing a new management system for licences in Xen Orchestra. This system will make it easier to manage Xen Orchestra and proxies licenses which are coming soon. We are also aiming for more flexibility in the future, thanks to a license system which does not rely entirely on a single email address.

Consequently to this new system, some action will be required on your side to bind correctly your license within Xen Orchestra. Here is the step-by-step guide.

1. Go in the Licenses section in your Xen Orchestra Appliance
2. All the licenses you paid for should be visible on this page. Unbinded licenses should have a green activate license button.

3. By clicking on the activate license button, you will start the process of binding the license on the current Xen Orchestra Appliance you are using.