Hello XenServer my old friend
It has been some time since I've done a project where I've been deploying a new XenServer environment. I got the opportunity this week to do a brand new XenApp & XenDesktop deployment with XenServer. The simplicity of XenServer just cannot be overstated. Connected storage, trunked a VLAN and we were off to the races.
The one thing I will say is that the networking needs work. The network bonding could certainly use some work. The Active-Active bonding did not work on failover despite being on the same switch, though once configured for LACP things worked.
Other than that though the performance has been great. With straightforward optimizations and minimal Group Policy, we had 20 second average logons to start. I should also mention that was with the images being on spinning disk. Thanks to MCSIO, performance is really impressive.
XenServer really should get more love for end user computing deployments. It may lack some of the advanced features like VMware, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you are doing non-persistent images, and you SHOULD be doing non-persistent images, most of the advanced features really aren't that necessary.
If you haven't given XenServer some serious consideration, do so. If you have XenDesktop you are already entitled to it so you aren't out anything. Plus Citrix is really developing advanced graphics around XenServer and advanced graphics is pretty much a must anymore. Get looking at it.......10 to Xen!!!
https://casino-online-ohne-limit.de makes me think about how often advanced features get marketed as must-haves when most deployments never touch them, which lines up with your point that non-persistent images make half of VMware's toolkit irrelevant. The LACP detail caught my attention too, since bonding quirks on the same switch are exactly the kind of thing that eats a maintenance window before anyone admits active-active isn't behaving. Getting 20-second logons on spinning disk with MCSIO is genuinely solid, and it makes me wonder how much of XenServer's reputation problem is just people never giving it a fair shot.
With https://zonderlimietcasino.net open in a background tab, the Active-Active bonding failover problem sounded like one of those bad bets where everything looks right until you need it to pay off, which made the LACP fix feel less like a preference and more like a necessity. The detail I’m filing away is the 20-second average logons from spinning disk thanks to MCSIO, since that makes non-persistent images a much easier sell to anyone still assuming fast VDI requires all-flash. I’ve done enough deployments to agree that XenServer’s missing VMware-style extras can be a relief when you’re not trying to run persistent desktops.