Bandwidth and NFuse

[itsnotmyfault]

Hey there,

I have a question about bandwidth. I am led to beleive that an ICA client will take as much bandwidth as it can get. For example if I have remote users accessing a Metaframe farm via the Internet and they have DSL, could they use their maximum bandwidth i.e. 256k and therefore if I have 20 users logged in they could max out my Internet link?

Cheers.

 

[LilOne]

That would depend. If it is one client (like at home)using dsl over the internet to your server(s), then no...ICA will take bandwidth as it can, but it is optimized and it doesn't matter as it is one client on one line.

If you are saying that you have a site that uses DSL to connect to you and you have multiple people using citrix to access it, then yes, but you would still be able to get more users on that link using citrix than without using citrix...example is 80K per person for RDP, 20K for Citrix...you need to take printing, audio, video and stuff into consideration as you size your b/w requirements

 

[itsnotmyfault]

Thanks for that.

The configuration will be something along these lines:

Central office will have an 8Mb link to the Internet, where the Metaframe farm will live.

Multiple users at home using their own DSL line will access the Farm via a VPN over the internet.

The conclusion some are comng to is that each DSL user will try and grab as much bandwidth as they can and therefore swamp the central line.

So I suppose I have two questions.

1) Can you restrict a remote Citrix client to a maximum bandwidth?

2) Will Citrix automatically try and grab as much bandwidth as available?

Thanks again in advance.

 

[LilOne]

1. Yes you can do somethings like restrict the number of instances the application can run either by user or by farm..another thing is in printer properties in the CMC, ensure that any "update at each logon" is NOT checked as that will slow user experience and update print drivers each time which is more data going over the wire...on a server by server basis, you can limit the kbps of print jobs per user.

Other than that, you would have to get a QoS device like packeteer to limit any ica sessions.

With an 8MB pipe though, you should be able to get approx 35 users pretty comfortably, although I say that not knowing what else is on the pipe, and what client settings you have going on. If I were you, I would ensure that audio is turned off, resolution is set to lowest you can, basically turn off as much as you can because that will lower the overhead on each user. For your sake, I'd turn off client drive mapping for home users just because of virus'.

2. Yep, it'll take as much as it can.

Hope this helps!

 

[itsnotmyfault]

What a star!

I had hoped you could throttle it by the user as we would be using the link for in and out traffic and therefore wouldnt want to have the external users eating all the bandwidth.

Thanks again.