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XenServer for XenApp - Better Together
Overview
For the last few years, IT professionals have questioned whether it makes sense to virtualize XenApp environments. The
answer has always been “it depends.” In short, that answer has not changed. Most organizations realize that having an
environment that is 100% physical or 100% virtual may not be the best solution. Adding server virtualization impacts
single server scalability, requires management and technical expertise, and adds environmental complexity. However, the
benefits can include higher utilization, greater availability and increased flexibility. Before deciding the best solution for
your environment, the challenges must be considered, the goals must be understood and the environment must be
conducive for server virtualization.
Objectives
IT organizations everywhere are either currently evaluating or in the early phases of investigating server virtualization
solutions. While there are many compelling arguments for the adoption of virtualization technologies, the main drivers
from both a business and a technical perspective can be categorized into three distinct groups:
Higher utilization
Greater availability
Increased flexibility
Higher Utilization
Organizations have built XenApp server farms to deliver varied types of applications, ranging from mission-critical line-
of-business applications to the outdated, resource-intensive applications that are only occasionally used. Depending
on the application and server resources, a single XenApp server has the potential to deliver applications to a handful of
users or several hundred users simultaneously. Increased scalability can have a large impact on reducing the overall
environment‟s server footprint if overall resource utilization can be increased. Trying to get more efficiency from of a
XenApp environment without requiring huge investments in hardware is a challenge organizations face. This
challenge focuses on the following questions:
How to best fully utilize servers without sacrificing the user experience?
How to allow systems to perform multiple functions without requiring significant integration testing?
Reference Architecture
XenServer 4.1