Terminal application server - best server for the job?

[neil77]

Hi
I'm setting up a server running Terminal Server in application server mode which will be used for accessing certain applications remotely.
What's going to be better... a single beefy quad CPU system, or two less powerful systems with lots of RAM?

 

[pauljex]

Hi

When I was on my training course for Citrix XP, I was always told to use serveral smaller servers rather than one large server beefy server, just in case one fails!!!

I'm not sure if you can load balance in Terminal services with out Citrix though??


Paul

 

[MVC]

Hi ,


we have 5 CitrixXp-servers .
They only have each 1 CPU - 1400 Mhz , but they each have 2GB of RAM and this works just fine . No loadbalancing.
Every user has its own fixed Citrix-server.


Greets , MVC

 

[neil77]

Thanks for the info, we're going to be using Netilla rather than Citrix, and I think more small servers is the way to go, perhaps dividing the applications between the servers.

I suppose the most important quality is lots of RAM rather than CPU speed.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Dual processor servers are definitely the best for this type of setup. RAM is more crucial than processor speed - as is a fast disk subsystem.

Load-Balanced MetaFrame servers are best for larger environments. Terminal Servers cannot be load-balanced in the same sense - Microsoft just uses a basic form of DNS round-robin.

Netilla is just a VPN product - that is only part of what MetaFrame does. MetaFrame allows you to serve out just the apps instead of the entire desktop to web pages. However, for a small setup, it's not really worth it.

Hope this helps