Dropping connections - frustrating issue.

[scroce]

My company has been using Citrix/Terminal server to share an file directory containing 100's of MSWord and large MSExcel files with a client. It's a good sized client, so it was worth the cost for my company to install a private 256k line with a firewall and router into the client's site.

The clients only have read access to the files, and the ability to download or print them via the citrix connection.

Recently the client went broadband, so we decided to try NFUSE, and save ourselves the cost of the 256k private line - and it works GREAT.....sometimes. Even though it's super-fast, it seems to drop connections a lot, causing an annoying amount of re-logins. I speculate that it's due to transient conditions on the internet - but I'm not sure.

Has anyone experienced a similar issue or have any suggestions how to improve performance? Or maybe I'll just have to stick with the private line connection which is slower, but offers more stability?

Often times the error message we recieve after working about 5 minutes on it is "Error in connection. Citrix server not available. Please try again Later" Then it boots you completely out.


Ah say, there's somethin' a little "eeeeeeee" 'bout a boy who don't like basbawl...

 

[ahalecitrix]

I'd first start with having the broadband connection analyzed. If it is a DSL connection there could be a variety of issues which could either be on your side or your clients side. For instance they may need to adjust the connection speed to stabilize the connection.

 

[scroce]

it's a cable connection serving about 50 - 60 network users.
So you're saying to open up a trouble ticket with the ISP then?

Ah say, there's somethin' a little "eeeeeeee" 'bout a boy who don't like basbawl...

 

[ahalecitrix]

That is a good place to start. You will need up to about 22k for each user connecting remotely via Citrix ICA. Plus if the files are rather large, when the users print that can eat up a lot of bandwidth because the file basically has to be spooled to the client's printer. It may be that you're losing packets through the ISP.

I'd definitely say that its a connectivity issue and I'd start by troubleshooting that connection. If you have the ability to do some network montioring both on the WAN side of your connection and between the NFuse server and the Citrix server that may prove to be very revealing.

 

[scroce]

Do you have a suggestion on what specific type of problems I should hunt for - i.e. dropped packets, bandwidth usage etc., and maybe a suggestion on what utilities I could run that may be useful. I also have a hunch that our ISP experiences high traffic volumes from about 10:00 - 11:00 and from about 1:00-3:00 - which could be contributing to the dropped connections. But other than calling and asking them, is there any other way to analyze that?

We are running NT4 Server connected to a firewall and router provided by our ISP, which we have no access to analyze.

thanks for your response.

Ah say, there's somethin' a little "eeeeeeee" 'bout a boy who don't like basbawl...