Should i build Citrix as a PDC

[Murray720]

I will soon build two Citrix Metaframe 1.8 machines using NT 4.0 TSE. (I do not own enough cals for 2k)

Should I build one of the Citrix boxes as a PDC or should I have a completely seperate (non-Citrix) box handling user profiles and authentication? I always thought the later. does it make a difference?

Also I would like these Citrix PCs to be load balanced.

thanks in advance.

 

[mattjurado]

Yes, it is always a good practice to do that. If you have a brand new Windows 2000 server with a lot of ram, and 15 computers on the network, it will handle PDC functions, and a couple TS Sessions just fine. In your case, you have two servers that are going to load balance. That tells me you probably have many users. If I'm correct in assuming that, you definitely want to offload the PDC functions elsewhere.

By the way, you might be limited by budget, but you are going to build two new servers on a product that is just about officially dead in Microsoft's eyes, and it will be incredibly difficult to get any support and patches for your applications in a year or so, let alone get any patches for the OS itself. You might hold off and budget for newer stuff. Its going to suck next year when your accounting company stops creating updates for your stuff, and your tax figures don't gel with the rest of the world.

Matt J.

 

[Ogi]

Hi,

Citrix servers should never be PDC's, you should always build Citrix servers as Member Servers.

They are being built to hosts users, PDC's do far too much work for them to cope with users and maintaining the domain.

Depending on your Citrix Licenses, you should be able to Load Balance your servers and it's published applications.

Hope this helps,
Carl.

 

[Murray720]

Thank you both, that pretty much reconfirms what I was already thinking; now to convince the IT Director.

...and we are a 100 user office with approximately 25 of 100 signed into Citrix at any one point. The purpose of the load balance is to provide 24/7 uptime.

My problem with 2000/2003 Server is the TSE licensing. You see, we have a mixed-bag of workstations consisting of some 98se machines, which are scattered all over the country. Is the TSE License only necessary when I publish a desktop? (probably not but) Can I get around this by just publishing the Apps?

**We do own 80, 2000 Server Cals**

Thanks Again.

 

[Ogi]

Hi,

You do need Terminal Service CALS regardless of what you publish. These are for all the non-windows 2000 boxes. Or that is what I am lead to believe!

Cheers,
Carl.

 

[Pritch5000]

Hi.

If I were you I would be cautious of deploying new NT systems and MF 1.8 - these products are retired and wont be enhanced or bug fixed, or even security patched in the future. I would be looking to construct an overwhelming argument to 'sell' w2k or w2k3 to the desicion makers.

Also, just to confirm that you need wk2 tscals for any client which is not either 2k pro or XP pro, but you have to buy 2k3 tscals and 'roll them back' (just as you do for all other 2k products). When you license 2k3 for use you will need to buy tscals for ALL clients, including XP. Unless I am mistaken?

Also if I can add to the conversation on TSEs as PDCs:

As others have said before an NT TSE server must NEVER be a PDC, except in test environments. This is largely to do with how policies are defined.

In Windows 2000, the policies are handled differently and this 'allows' you to configure a W2k TS as a DC. But this is still not a good idea in many scenarios.

I know this isnt you question, but in case you convince your desicion makers to be forward-looking, let me give you one scenario I encountered:
I built a native windows 2000 system which consisted of: a clustered SQL database server and terminal servers with Citrix MetaFrame XP. The cluster nodes cannot be DCs so I configured two of the terminal servers to be DCs as there was no budget for additional servers.
Although this is not a major problem, we have trouble orchestrating reboots. The clustered database server also hold the IMA datastore which the terminal servers need to start the IMA service. The clustered servers need the DCs (or at least one) to be up for domain participation.
During the build we also encountered some issues with drive remapping, the domain controller functions didnt appreciate have its drive letters changed! The Citrix remapping process did not update the entire system for the drive letters - something to be aware of.
It is however a working system.