In new developments at Xen.org (the home of the open source Xen hypervisor), the Xen Cloud Platform (XCP) 1.0 has been released as part of the Xen Cloud Project. First introduced in 2009, XCP 1.0 provides a full-featured solution for small and medium size enterprises wanting to build private clouds, as well as open source enthusiasts, universities, and researchers wanting to experiment with cloud computing.

This represents a shift in enterprise usability for Xen.org, which has traditionally released software as source code only. As the technology sits today, XCP enables developers to create and "play" with new and innovative technologies and techniques against a mature, stable, and scalable virtualization stack.

Essentially, XCP is an open source server virtualization platform in a single, tested, installable image that features the Xen hypervisor, network and storage support, a management stack and tools, as well as support for a range of guest operating systems including Windows and Linux. XCP 1.0 integrates with the OpenStack Bexar release, providing an end-to-end open source software stack covering everything from the bare metal to cloud orchestration software.

Margaret Lewis, director of commercial software solutions at AMD, has said that 2011 is set to be the year when cloud deployments become even more widespread. "Tools like XCP 1.0 will prove critical in developing the mature and secure cloud services of tomorrow. The combination of AMD Opteron processors, with high core counts and outstanding power efficiency, and the Xen Cloud Platform can enable innovative, end-to-end solutions that deliver the features, scalability, and performance that cloud providers require."