XenCenter

Licensing Overview

Citrix Hypervisor is available in two commercial editions:

  • Standard Edition
  • Premium Edition

The Standard Edition is our entry-level commercial offering. It includes a range of features that deliver a robust and high performing virtualization platform, but not the premium features offered by the Premium Edition. With Standard Edition, you can still benefit from the assurance of comprehensive Citrix Support and Maintenance.

The Premium Edition is our premium offering, optimized for both server, desktop and cloud workloads. In addition to the Standard Edition, the Premium Edition offers the following features:

  • Automated Windows VM driver updates
  • Automatic updating of the Management Agent
  • Support for SMB storage
  • Direct Inspect APIs
  • Dynamic Workload Balancing
  • GPU virtualization with NVIDIA vGPU, AMD MxGPU, and Intel GVT-g
  • VMware vSphere to Citrix Hypervisor conversion utilities
  • Export pool resource data
  • In-memory read caching
  • PVS-Accelerator
  • Citrix Hypervisor live patching
  • Enablement for Citrix Virtual Desktops tablet mode
  • Changed block tracking
  • IGMP snooping
  • USB pass-through
  • SR-IOV network support
  • Thin provisioning for shared block storage devices

Notes:

If you have purchased Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, you continue to have an entitlement to Citrix Hypervisor that includes all features in the preceding list.

Automated Updates were previously restricted to Citrix Hypervisor Premium Edition customers or Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops customers. However, in pools with hotfix XS82ECU1053 applied, this feature is available to all users.

Citrix Licensing

Citrix Hypervisor uses the same licensing process as other Citrix products and as such requires a valid license to be installed on a License Server. You can download the License Server from Citrix Licensing. After purchasing the license for your Citrix Hypervisor, you will receive a .LIC license access code. Install this license access code on a Windows server running the Citrix License Server software.

Important:

Citrix Hypervisor 8.1 requires Citrix License Server 11.14 or higher.

When you assign a license to your Citrix Hypervisor host, Citrix Hypervisor contacts the specified Citrix License Server and requests a license for the specified servers. If successful, a license is checked out. The License Manager displays information about the license the hosts are licensed under.

When you request or apply licenses, information about the Citrix Hypervisor version and license type might be transmitted to Citrix. No other information relating to users, VMs, or the Citrix Hypervisor environment is collected or transmitted to Citrix. The limited information transmitted to Citrix during the licensing process is handled in accordance with our privacy policy. For more information, see our privacy policy.

Licensing Citrix Hypervisor servers

Citrix Hypervisor does not support partial licensing, all servers in a pool must be licensed. If your Citrix Hypervisor pool contains servers that are licensed with different license types, the lowest license applies to the whole pool. Mixed pools of licensed and unlicensed hosts behave as if all hosts were unlicensed. For information on managing licenses in Citrix Hypervisor, see Managing Citrix Hypervisor Licenses.

Upgrades to the Premium Edition are available from the Standard edition. For detailed information about Citrix Hypervisor licensing, see Licensing. To upgrade or to buy a Citrix Hypervisor license, visit the Citrix website.

License expiry

XenCenter notifies you when your license is due to expire. Purchase a license before it expires. When your Citrix Hypervisor license expires:

  • XenCenter License Manager displays the status as Unlicensed.
  • You cannot access licensed features or receive Citrix Support for any server within the pool until you purchase another license.

License grace period

Citrix licensing has built-in timeout technology. After a Citrix Hypervisor server checks out a startup license, the Citrix Hypervisor server and the License Server exchange “heartbeat” messages every five minutes. These heartbeat messages indicate to each server that the other is still up and running. If your Citrix Hypervisor host cannot contact the License Server, the server lapses into a 30-day licensing grace period. During the grace period, Citrix Hypervisor licenses itself through cached information. The servers are allowed to continue operations as if they are still in communication with the License Server. The grace period is 30 days and when the grace period runs out, Citrix Hypervisor reverts to an unlicensed state. After communication is re-established between Citrix Hypervisor and the License Server, the grace period is reset.

Licensing Overview