They Sometimes Return: Citrix Resurfaces in the Virtualization Market with XenServer 9

"And in strange aeons, even death may die," Lovecraft wrote. The news that Citrix is returning to the virtualization market may not be as strange, but it certainly strikes a chord and is a sign of the times: the company sees a business opportunity in this sector and is reintroducing XenServer with version 9.

Citrix Returns with XenServer 9

XenServer was one of VMware's main competitors about twenty years ago, but starting in the mid-2010s, Citrix effectively withdrew from the open competition to focus on the infrastructure for its desktop virtualization and networking products, renaming XenServer to Citrix Hypervisor.

As a result of the acquisition of Citrix in 2022 by two private equity groups, Citrix reorganized and launched the independent XenServer division, aiming to re-enter the virtualization market. This division is now no longer independent and has rejoined Citrix, as announced on LinkedIn.

In this context, Citrix announced XenServer 9, a version that brings several novelties: the first is the launch of a trial version, allowing users to test its features for 90 days; also introduced are Secure Boot, XenServer OS as a Linux distribution for hypervisor management, as well as the removal of support for traditional BIOS booting.

Citrix writes that "XenServer 9 is a pragmatic response to the pressure that IT infrastructure teams are experiencing today. It reflects a market reality where costs, operational simplicity, and stability are interconnected requirements that must be addressed together. In this context, platforms are no longer defined by the breadth of features, but by their ability to provide predictable costs and operational stability over time."

Citrix has indeed included the option to use XenServer as part of some licenses, which are actually packages of different products. The creation of these packages has caused several headaches for VMware customers, and within the Citrix world, there hasn't always been joy either.

There is also another aspect to consider: Citrix has been effectively absent from the market for over a decade and is returning as a new competitor that must build its presence from scratch or almost. Secondly, XCP-ng, the open-source version of XenServer, has matured significantly in the meantime and is, in many ways, ahead of the Citrix version. And it’s free, which is a very important factor when it comes to costs.