With 2024 in the rearview mirror and 2025 lying in front of us like an empty sheet waiting for us to fill it with projects and events, there is an important date ahead: the End Of Life of Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 CU1 (June 25th 2025). But this is not an ending – this is your opportunity to get your hypervisor onto a fresh release that is easier to keep up to date than any other hypervisor while adding a whole bunch of new features that we are convinced that you will appreciate!
We know Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 has trustfully served thousands of organizations for over 4 years, but now it is time to move on to a new platform. XenServer 8 brings not only a heap of great new features but also transforms the way hypervisors are kept up to date.
But before we go deeper into that, let’s briefly look at the new functionality that the launch of XenServer 8 brought to the table. Support for Windows 11 and vTPM, integrated PVS Accelerator, added support for Nagios and SNMP and an updated Xen Conversion Manager to mention just some of the highlights. But one of the biggest changes was the way the hypervisor is being kept current. The old way of downloading individual fixes and hoping you managed to get the right mix is gone. This has been replaced with a stream of fixes delivered through a content delivery network (CDN) that help you keep your XenServer pools updated and fresh with minimum effort. Too good to be true? Read all about Automated Updates here.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. As a result of the stream model and a new engineering process, new features have been added to the product throughout the year. A simplified way of getting PVS images from VMware to XenServer was introduced, Terraform support was added, support for anti-affinity, Windows Server 2025 support and Citrix aware XenCenter to mention the most recent additions.
But what if your XenServer pool has no way of connecting to the internet, or the hosts are not permitted to fetch the updates from a CDN? Don’t worry – there is a way to get the update stream to your pool even without using a CDN.
So there are a ton of reasons for you to upgrade your Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 environment right now. Well – what about my hardware – will XenServer 8 run on the same servers? Don’t worry, the hardware compatibility list is the same for both Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 CU 1 and XenServer 8.
If you are looking for more detailed information, you can consult the Prepare for Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 Cumulative Update 1 End of Life knowledge base article
So get your upgrade project started today and enjoy all the great new features of an updated hypervisor!