Part 2 – Installing Citrix XenCenter and Creating a XenServer Pool

Following on from part 1, in this second part of the series we will install the Citrix XenCenter and add the two XenServer hosts and create a XenServer pool.

We will be installing Citrix XenCenter on a Windows Machine. Double click the XenCenter msi file to start the installation.

On Citrix XenCenter Setup click Next to continue.

Select All Users and click Next.

Click Install to begin the installation.

Once the installation is complete click Finish to launch Citrix XenCenter.

In XenCenter console, click Add New Server to add the XenServer host.

Enter the hostname and IP address of the XenServer host. I have created DNS host entries for the two XenServer hosts. Enter the username as root and root password and click Add.

Accept the certificate warning and the XenServer host xenhost01 is added to the Citrix XenCenter.

Add the second XenServer host xenhost02 to XenCenter.

Next we will create the XenServer pool and add the two XenServer hosts to it. Pools in Citrix are equivalent to clusters in VMware vCenter. In the XenCenter Window, click on New Pool button as shown below.

In the Create New Pool window enter TESTPOOL-01 as the name for the pool and clicl Next.

Select xenhost01 as the Coordinator node and select the checkbox against xenhost02 to add it the pool. Click on Create Pool to create the pool.

Verify that the pre-checks are OK and there are no warning against any of the supporter servers. Click Next.

Verify that the Pool was created and servers were added to the pool successfully. Click Finish to close the wizard.

Next we will configure the bond / teaming for the Management Network of the XenServers. Click on Networking and then on Add Network.

Select Bonded Network and click Next.

Select the two adapters NIC 0 and NIC 1, for bond mode select Active-passive and click Finish.

Warning will be displayed, the creating this bond will automatically move the management interface on one of your selected bond members to the bond and the XenCenter connections to the pool will be temporarily disturbed. Click on Create bond anyway.

The XenServer pool will get disconnected while the bond is being created temporarily. Once the connection is restored to the pool you can see the new bond created for both xenhost01 and xenhost02.