Server virtualization provider, XenSource, announced the general availability of their latest commercial virtualization platform, XenEnterprise. The upgraded version offers SMP support for Windows guest operating systems and adds support for additional Windows and Linux versions as guests. Customers looking to virtualize demanding applications such as databases amd mail servers are now one step closer. Some IT a Server virtualization provider, XenSource, announced the general availability of their latest commercial virtualization platform, XenEnterprise. The upgraded version offers SMP support for Windows guest operating systems and adds support for additional Windows and Linux versions as guests. Customers looking to virtualize demanding applications such as databases amd mail servers are now one step closer. Some IT administrators have been reluctant to use XenSource to run these heavy, CPU-intensive applications without SMP. According to XenSource, XenEnterprise 3.2 lets IT staff easily manage the allocation of system resources to virtual machines, making virtualization easier than ever before. The new release includes drivers to support more servers and add-in cards out of the box – making XenEnterprise 3.2 the virtualization platform with the broadest possible hardware support. Additionally, XenEnterprise 3.2 incorporates multiple improvements in manageability and serviceability, offering built-in tools that let users upload all data needed for issue reporting with a single command, simplifying technical support. The latest release includes new features such as: Multi-processor support (SMP) for Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP guests – delivering scalable virtualization of Exchange, SQL Server, and other multi-threaded and compute-intensive applications. Windows 2000 guests – enabling consolidation of the vast majority of deployed Windows server workloads. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 guests – supporting unmodified installation with the full performance benefits of paravirtualization. Improved Windows guest support – providing accelerated network performance, ability to suspend/resume virtual machines, up to 8GB RAM per Windows guest, and signed drivers with WHQL certification. iSCSI SAN support – delivering affordable networked storage support. VLAN trunk support for virtual bridges – providing network traffic isolation. CPU, disk and network resource control – enabling IT organizations to deliver more server resources to the highest-priority workloads. “XenSource offers a proven platform for Windows and Linux virtualization,” said John Bara, VP of marketing, XenSource. “Customers are embracing XenSource solutions because they are open and easy to use, perform extremely well, and have the market’s broadest hardware device support. Our new release offers enhanced features that provide broader guest OS choices and more powerful virtualization management.”This release is the latest attempt by XenSource to challenge the current server virtualization market leader, VMware, for a piece of the virtualization market that generated a cool $709 million last year for VMware.XenEnterprise 3.2 is available now and pricing starts at $488 for an annual subscription license per dual socket server, and $750 for a perpetual license per dual socket server. For more information, go here. Software Development