Global slowness with Citrix: what is your situation?

[isterios]

We have about 60 users actually on Citrix (Presentation Server 3.0). Most use only Outlook 2003.

Most of them complain about the slowness (most in Wan configuration). I noted this slowness. Often their system freeze some couple of seconds waiting for Citrix/network answers... Network lines are not ridiculous (1Mb for 10 users here, 2Mb for 20 users there etc.)

A Citrix Consultant came to investigate our servers and nothing wrong was noticed. Our servers have no low performance indicators (Bi Xeon 3.2Ghz + 4Go Ram for 60 simultaneous users).

I tried to reduce colors, to play with ICA Keep Alive, TCPMaxDataRetransmissions, MTU, nothing really better.

Hence my question is:
Do you meet the same situation? Or am I the only one (suggesting I miss something)?

 

[MikeBatters]

We have many similar configurations without problems although maybe a few less users per server. We tend to implement HP DL380s with Dual XEON CPUs & 3GB RAM for about 40 users.

It might be worth looking outside the Citrix servers for the problems here.

Look for packet loss on the links, errors on the routers etc becuase the symtoms you are descibing look like comms problems.

Let me know if there is anything you find.

 

[isterios]

Thanks Mike. I just know on seat, here, I have no slowness so I think you're right.
Unfortunately I am not in charge of the network and Citrix is not the priority of the network team.

 

[ctxuser]

Especially about MS Outlook, this email apps presumably connects to an Exchange Server over the network, the Exchange server/s makes use of Active Directory. Global Catalogue servers recommended by microsoft should be placed on the site you're or their (WAN users) in, DNS for name resolution is also necessary to be placed on their site (WAN users) to reduce replication traversing the WAN link. This may be the situation with your MS Outlook connection...It's worth looking into with your Exchange Server staffs...

Sometimes, you just have to forget your head and grab your balls ...!

 

[isterios]

Yes ctxuser, audits made by our network team concerning global wan show that 3/4 of the bandwidth is used by exchange. The actual political is to centralize all the servers in one datacenter, for costs reasons. This involves large wan bandwidth, that we don't necessary own.

But our main problem (I think) is that our users make regular files transfer using citrix (from citrix servers to their local client), and use big local pst. They receive a lot of attachments and so copy them in local. Or they copy files from their local client to centralized servers, using Citrix explorer. Citrix doesn't seem to appreciate this situation. We made a FTP to resolve this issue but our users complain because it's another tool to be used.

 

[ascotta]

Youe definatley want to personally cut the hands off the users who copy to their hard disks. This will cause your slowness without a doubt. I personally hate it.

Your bullets can include "Your data is not backed up on your own hard disk so if you lose it tough s......."

Why are they copying locally for goodness sake ? If they are doing that then it introduces things that Citrix was not developed for.

[blue]Arguably the best cat skinner around ! [/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[isterios]

Good question. In fact these users take their PC client to their customers (because they need local applications), and so want to be able to check their mails and files, in offline mode (without network).

In a few words:
1. we have a political here which says: clients which are not "corporate compliant" have no authorization to connect to the domain.
2. Those persons use Operating Software which are not compliant (98, NT etc.) because their customers use these old operating software and tools. So these persons cannot connect to the domain from now one.
3. The solution we found: Citrix, which permit to access the domain for these no compliant systems, with sufficient security (validated by our security responsibles).

You now see the problem: these persons want with Citrix to have globally the same functionnalities they had before, when they had access to the domain: this involves using outlook with pst, transfering files between their local pcs and the domain, synchronize calendars between server and local, etc.

Conclusion: each day they complain about the slowness (only on WAN, not on LAN) and think it's a technical issue.

 

[ctxuser]

This may not be a technical issue afterall but a design issue where due to WAN users and political reasons you have to put up with the lack of adequate WAN bandwidth. Auto Archive or deleting the WAN users emails and attachment might be a way forward, of course this is the responsibility of your Exchange personel not yours as a Citrix Admin. Outlook will continue to depend on Backend Exchange Servers, from Citrix point of view, you'll published MS outlook and there isn't enough WAN link to cater for the demanding email attachments...

Sometimes, you just have to forget your head and grab your balls ...!