Xen.org, the home of the open source Xen project, has announced the release of Xen 3.3 engine, the latest version of the open source hypervisor. The release is now available for download from the Xen.org community site and is the product of a distributed development effort by senior engineers from more than 50 leading hardware, software, and security vendors. Xen 3.3 includes enhancements that further advance its position as a fast, scalable, secure virtualization engine for the industry’s broadest range of server and PC chipsets - from super computers to PDAs.

Since the first release of Xen in December 2005, Xen-based products have gained market share, accounting for almost a fifth of servers virtualized to date.

“The Xen.org community has made security and performance key criteria for the evolution of Xen,” said Zeus Kerravala, SVP, Enterprise Research, Yankee Group. “This has been a successful strategy, according to recent Yankee Group survey data showing Xen’s rapid growth.”

The new Xen 3.3 release provides users with an array of advanced new features and designs to further improve overall performance of the hypervisor engine in mainstream enterprise computing environments. Intel’s continued contribution to the Xen project, for example, is driving parallel advances in hardware and software virtualization capabilities to ensure that Xen-based solutions take full advantage of next-generation microprocessor technologies. “At Intel, we continue to enable Xen to take advantage of the advancements in Intel Virtualization Technologies and other platform capabilities,” said Imad Sousou, Director of Intel Open Source Technology Center. “Xen 3.3 is optimized for Intel’s next generation micro-architecture Nehalem features; enhanced power management, performance, I/O and networking features for building flexible resource management solutions in an energy-efficient data center.”

Highest Performance and Lowest Cost for Large Data Centers

The Xen 3.3 engine offers best in class performance for both server and desktop workloads with the highest degree of multiplexing, providing users with the tools to achieve lower hardware costs per virtual machine, with the additional benefit of optimal power usage per server – making it an ideal choice for large data center virtualization deployments. In addition, Xen utilizes both hardware and software techniques to enable it to virtualize both current and legacy operating systems with performance. As a result, its architecture has influenced the design of all modern operating systems, including Windows, Linux and Solaris, which gain performance and security from Xen’s groundbreaking “para-virtualization” approach. Xen is also superbly matched with leading x86 hardware features for virtualization, to support both legacy and future workloads.