Centralizing storage functions and connecting them with the virtualization architecture allows IT administrators to leverage the power of existing storage functions to maintain virtual machine data, create multiple repositories to store data, and establish consistent management processes for both physical and virtual environments. Citrix XenServer with StorageLink enables you to integrate your existing datacenter storage network with your virtualization deployment.

Citrix StorageLink Overview

 

Citrix StorageLink™ technology lets your virtual server infrastructures fully leverage all the resources and functionality of existing storage systems. StorageLink supports third party storage architectures and delivers deep integration with leading storage platforms.

Benefits of StorageLink

• Improved Management of Storage Fabric and Arrays:
  Traditionally, fabrics and arrays are managed with their own set of proprietary UIs.
  StorageLink™ provides easy to use UI wizards to configure and manage your SAN fabric and arrays.

• Tight Integration with native features of Storage Arrays:
  StorageLink™ “talks the language” of the storage array and exposes the native feature set in the storage array to the Virtualization administrator. Examples of these features are thin provisioning, fast clones, fast snapshots etc.

• Improved VM Lifecycle Management:
  StorageLink™ allows the administrator to define hardware and storage profiles for VMs. Storage profiles can then be linked to storage volumes (LUNs) in storage arrays.
  The combination of hardware and storage profiles allows administrators to define golden images to enable subsequent rapid creation of complex workloads leveraging the snapshot and clone capabilities of storage arrays.

Click here to see Citrix Ready for StorageLink