Xen 4.21 is out

Clément Schilling -

The Xen Project has released Xen 4.21, and it is a very solid update. Nothing flashy, nothing over the top. The kind of release that quietly moves the hypervisor forward with a more modern codebase, broader hardware support and real improvements in how it runs under load. In short, the foundations get stronger, and everyone building on Xen benefits from it.

Xen Project Delivers Xen 4.21, a Modernized Hypervisor with Broader Architecture Support and Improved Performance
OpenSSF Announces Key Membership Growth and Golden Egg Award Winners at Open Source SecurityCon North America
The Linux FoundationThe Linux Foundation

What changed

Xen 4.21 continues the long work of modernizing the hypervisor. A lot of old code paths have been cleaned or simplified, which makes the whole project easier to maintain and more predictable for the future. You also get improvements in scheduling, I/O handling and general responsiveness. These changes are not spectacular on their own, but combined they deliver a smoother experience, especially on hosts with many VMs.

Support for more hardware architectures has also improved. This gives operators more freedom to build on the platforms they actually want to use, whether on traditional x86 servers or newer ARM environments. And of course, the release includes many bug fixes and stability updates that keep Xen reliable in production.

Why it matters

For Vates, this release fits perfectly with our view of virtualization. It should stay open, performant and fully under your control. A modernized Xen means better performance, simpler long term maintenance and more flexibility when it comes to hardware choices, from small edge machines to dense datacenter nodes.

We will share updates as we move along.