Cowley : XenServer 5.6 FP1 Release

 Citrix has released  XenServer 5.6 Feature Pack 1  to Citrix.com and MyCitrix.com.
Customers and partners can find the downloads on MyCitrix: https://www.citrix.com/English/SS/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=2306109&productId=683148 as well as through the trial download section from http://www.citrix.com/xenserver
What’s New in this release
Highlights for this release are:
•    Distributed Virtual Switching. Provides distributed, fine-grained networking configuration and control policies, which increase visibility into XenServer virtual networks. Support for the vSwitch has been added as a post-install option on XenServer hosts, as well as a Controller for administration of multiple vSwitches and cross-server internal networks.
Jumbo Frames are now supported for storage networks when the vSwitch is used.
•    VM Protection and Recovery. Configure scheduled snapshots and (optional) archive of virtual machines.
•    Web Self-Service. Provides browser-based access to selected virtual machines by delegated administrators.
•    Boot from SAN with multipathing support. Boot XenServer hosts with HBAs from a SAN, with multipathing support.
•    HA Restart Priority. Configure HA policies to restart specific VM(s) first.
•    Enhanced XenCenter. Including StorageLink configuration entirely within XenCenter, workload reporting for VM utilization and chargeback.
•    Improved MPP RDAC multipathing including path health reporting and alerting in XenCenter.
•    Snapshot improvements. Improved reclamation of space after VM snapshots are deleted, even if the VM is running.
•    Enhanced guest OS support for Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, and Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP1.
•    Generic Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.x support. RHEL / CentOS / Oracle Enterprise Linux versions 5.0 to 5.5 support with a generic .RHEL 5. template.
•    Brocade HBA drivers and command-line tools are included in XenServer.
•    Provisioning Services improvements to Windows volume license (MAK and KMS) support.
•    XenDesktop platform enhancements. Provides local host caching of VM images to reduce storage TCO for XenDesktop VDI deployments. (Note: these platform enhancements will be enabled by a future version of XenDesktop).
•    Lab Manager 3.9 Service Pack 1 which includes various updates and bugfixes
More details can be found in the Release notes on the Knowledge Base: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127362. Full documentation is accessible through the MyCitrix download page, or on the KB here: http://support.citrix.com/product/xens/v5.6/component/fp1/#tab-doc
StorageLink Version 2.4, along with XS 5.6 FP1, available from https://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=2306109&productId=683148&c1=pov2301284.
The updated version of StorageLink Version 2.4 includes:
•    Site Recovery support for XenServer virtual machines on LVHD volumes
•    Support for the HP StorageWorks XP 20000 series (including Site Recovery support)
•    Support for Pillar Axiom storage systems
•    Various improvements to overall scalability
•    Various improvements to overall performance
StorageLink Version 2.4 will also be available within Essentials for Hyper-V 5.6 FP2, which is also available for immediate download at https://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/results.asp?productID=1854179&c1=pov2301870
Additional information about StorageLink & Essentials for Hyper-V is available here:
The Eclipse Edoc version of the StorageLink documentation is located here:
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/index.jsp?lang=en&topic=/essentials-for-hv/storagelink-22.html
Here is a link to more information about Essentials for Hyper-V and StorageLink on Citrix.com > products
http://www.citrix.com/ehv