Help With Load Balancing/clustering 1

[june1980]

I've a Citrix farm of three servers. They all see each other in the console, but they don't share the load. I'm guessing I must have skipped that part in the instructions, so, if you could, please tell me how to load balance with Citrix Metaframe XP?

Three Citrix servers, one runs Nfuse.
They're used as the front end servers for our Database server. Only one shows active sessions, I watn them to share the load - clustered. I guess the question is, "How do you cluster them"?

 

[JohnTcolo]

Right click on an application in the CMC, you will see the load management option. You can then add your servers for management and select an evaluator, use the advanced evaluator for starters.

Hope this helps.

 

[june1980]

Right under my nose.....


Thanks.

 

[EvilPeppard]

I took a Citrix MetaFrame Administration course last year. The instructor said the build in "Advanced" load balancing option work great. They work great for me. Make sure you switch all servers in the farm to this load balance option. You have to do it for each one.

 

[bran2235]

Is this Load "balancing"?? I just opened my CMC and right cliked our Pub App (desktop) and went to Load management. All of our 6 servers were underneath AVAILABLE and NOT selected... Then, the evaluator next to each one was 'none'(?) I don't understand here. I know we are Load Balancing and it's working great... Maybe I am just confused here... Any suggestions??

Thanks,
Brandon

 

[JohnTcolo]

The screen is kind of misleading. You must select the servers, move them over to the right side and then select the load evaluator. Click apply and they will return to the left.

When you see your servers and none shown for the load evaluator, you are not load managing.

Good Luck.

 

[june1980]

Thanks all, helped out lots.

 

[EvilPeppard]

So, even though I have my load evaluators set for each server to Advanced, I still have to load manage each application that I run??

Right now I have 8 servers in the farm. I highlight the server in the CMC, righ click on it, choose Load Manage Server, then set the Load Evaluator to Advanced. Just setting this is not really running the load evaluators for applications?

I have been running for over a year without any applications load managed, thinking I was already load managing them because I set it for the server.

Please clarify for me. This sounds like a significant setting I need to make. Thanks!

 

[ascotta]

I am a little confused as to these posts.

I have never had to use load management at all. Ever.

Either publish the desktop and add the servers when asked
or
publish the application and add the servers when asked.

Load management is for directing users depending on load criteria i.e when you have inequal servers or when you have some buggy apps that might spoil others experience, or when you only wish to provide certain apps from certain servers.

Load balancing works out the box. :-D


Cheers
Scott

 

[EvilPeppard]

Ok, so just setting the load evaluators on each server is all I need? I don't need to ALSO set load evaluators on the applications?

 

[Ogi]

Hi,

You need to set Load Evaluators on every published application that uses multiple servers.

I use default for every server and every published application, otherwise, when you do a "qfarm /app" some of your loads read "20000", i think! Some number greater than 10000!

Also, if you have an application that misbehaves, the Advanced Load will stop people from logging on!

Cheers,
Carl.

 

[EvilPeppard]

So, you are saying if I have 5 servers running Desktop that are all fairly similar in hardware specs, I not only should have the load evaluators turned on for them, but should have the load evaluators running the Desktop application as well?

And...if I turn on the load evaluator for Desktop, it should be the Default one and not the Advanced one?

What should the Load Evaluators be set as on the servers them selves? Advanced or Default? Thanks.

 

[Ogi]

Hi,

I use default all the time.

If an application starts misbehaving, users won't be able to log into a server with high processor usage, and, due to your other users, it may be some time until you can reboot said server.

However, if you use Default, then it's doesn't care about processor load, just number of logged in users. Far safer in environments with heavy cpu applications.

Hope this helps,
Carl.

PS I run 30 servers and 109 applications and Load Manage all the servers on Default and all apps as well!!!!

 

[EvilPeppard]

Thanks Ogi:

You run the default Load Evaluator on all the servers and all the published apps (i.e. Desktop)?

 

[Ogi]

Yes!

 

[bran2235]

Be careful-
If I remember right from CTX training- When you use the advanced load manager, the default settings are set to be best w/ a TS that is running at least 2 GB of RAM, quad processors, etc!! So, depending on what type of machines, the Advanced load balancer/manager may not be best...

I'm with Ogi- I manage a farm of 7 and use nothing but the 'Default'...

Hope this helps!
Good luck!
Brandon

 

[EvilPeppard]

Ok, I changed the Servers back to Default. I never had Desktop or any other published apps set with any load balancing. I will try using the Default Evaluator on the Desktop Published app as well and see if it gains me anything.

Thanks.

 

[rayzze]

In the metaframe XP family, Load Balancing is only available on Metaframe xpa and xpe all xps servers are not licensed to use load balancing.

Servers can run multiple applications this is why there are server loads and application loads. The highest load calculated between app load or server load is the one used when figuring out where a user is placed. You can view your current load on your servers by running qfarm /app from the dos prompt on any xpa or xps citrix box. The default evaluator is just number of users per application or server based on 100 users and nothing else. If you see a load of 10000 that server is fully loaded. You can create your own custom load evalulators if users per is not good enough. Always load balance to your servers weakness (Ram, CPU etc...) If you need to take a server out of service you can create a custom user load to show a server as fully loaded with just a single user logged on. Then everyone who tries to connect in the future will be sent to other servers and once all other log off you will have no one on your server so you can patch it during the day etc.

Hope this helps,

 

[TheMac28nearly]

I can understand why Ogi may load balance both servers and apps, especially if you dont have all the apps installed on all servers, but if you had 5 servers only running desktop and they are all similar spec, then you are going to get no benefit from doing the apps as well with the default seeing as the load balancing will even the number of users out anyway, or am i missing something ?

just my 2 cents !

 

[EvilPeppard]

Thanks. I actually decided against load balancing the apps and am just trying th Default Load Evaluators on the servers. So far it seems good, although I still get daily complaints of users stating their session "hangs" for 30 - 60 seconds at various points throughout the day, then returns to normal.

Thanks again for everyone's help!