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Where can I find documentation on how to figure out how many users a Citrix server can support?
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# users a 1.8 Metaframe server can support
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From experience, we go by the rule: A dual fast processor machine with a Gigabyte of RAM supports 50 'power users'. I'd like to see a more scientific way of working it out! Do quad machines now scale properly? - it used to be that that the extra 2 processors only got you 20% more processing power...
wilsona experience sounds right. In case you want to run some calculation, I'd suggest you to test your applications in a normal NT4 / W2k workstation, write down the average amount of memory and cpu your average user will use. RAM is the very important. You don't want your server paging.
Total memory required = (Average user consumption x number of users) - 200MB for OS. As you notice, you can go through the calculation in the reverse or from any variable. Basic desktops with Office, a web browser, mail client, acrobat can be tuned down to use a basic 32MB of RAM per user. In that case a 1GB RAM server will let you have concurrent 25 users. I'd say you can have 30 in that server if it is a dual 1GHZ / 1GB Ram. Notice, that the a dual CPU server task manager CPU consumption will tell you that you could have 100 users on it, what is not possible with 1GB RAM.
Take advantage of the new MF XP licensing system and build as many servers as you can without trying to stuck all users in one machine. Use CMPTMAN.EXE to tune up the applications ( Use 1U servers and you save real state too. Having multiple load balanced servers will also give you contingency resources and flexibility for maintenance.
Total memory required = (Average user consumption x number of users) - 200MB for OS. As you notice, you can go through the calculation in the reverse or from any variable. Basic desktops with Office, a web browser, mail client, acrobat can be tuned down to use a basic 32MB of RAM per user. In that case a 1GB RAM server will let you have concurrent 25 users. I'd say you can have 30 in that server if it is a dual 1GHZ / 1GB Ram. Notice, that the a dual CPU server task manager CPU consumption will tell you that you could have 100 users on it, what is not possible with 1GB RAM.
Take advantage of the new MF XP licensing system and build as many servers as you can without trying to stuck all users in one machine. Use CMPTMAN.EXE to tune up the applications ( Use 1U servers and you save real state too. Having multiple load balanced servers will also give you contingency resources and flexibility for maintenance.
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
The only scientific way of working it out is to DIY.
It all depends on the power of the box in question and the amount of RAM it has.
There are official figures in the documentation which serve as a starting point, but the only way to come up with an accurate figure is to pilot a server and monitor memory usage across different levels of user.
For example, it's one thing to say that Microsoft Word uses X amount of RAM, but that needs to be combined with the size and number of files a user might have open. Applications such as Internet Explorer can be dreadful memory hogs - and leaky to boot.
Everyone has their own rule of thumb, so here's mine;
128Mb for the O/S (Terminal Server)
64Mb for MetaFrame (XP needs this amount, but 1.x is significantly less).
32Mb per user.
IME, the processors make very little difference. Of course, there's a noticable improvement when using 1Ghz + over 200Mhz, so generally I get the fastest I can afford.
Scalability-wise, 2 processor boxes still give a better cost/performance ratio than 4 processor boxes. I'd recommend 2 dual-proc machines over a single quad any day - this could leave enough over in your budget for load-balancing, so you'd have a quasi fail-safe set-up.
I've had 100 users working comfortably on a single quad Xeon 500 server with 2Gb RAM. This was just a test to see if it could be done, though - not a live production server. The max I've had on a dual box is 75. RAM really is the key here - and since it's so cheap, max out those servers!
I hope this helps
It all depends on the power of the box in question and the amount of RAM it has.
There are official figures in the documentation which serve as a starting point, but the only way to come up with an accurate figure is to pilot a server and monitor memory usage across different levels of user.
For example, it's one thing to say that Microsoft Word uses X amount of RAM, but that needs to be combined with the size and number of files a user might have open. Applications such as Internet Explorer can be dreadful memory hogs - and leaky to boot.
Everyone has their own rule of thumb, so here's mine;
128Mb for the O/S (Terminal Server)
64Mb for MetaFrame (XP needs this amount, but 1.x is significantly less).
32Mb per user.
IME, the processors make very little difference. Of course, there's a noticable improvement when using 1Ghz + over 200Mhz, so generally I get the fastest I can afford.
Scalability-wise, 2 processor boxes still give a better cost/performance ratio than 4 processor boxes. I'd recommend 2 dual-proc machines over a single quad any day - this could leave enough over in your budget for load-balancing, so you'd have a quasi fail-safe set-up.
I've had 100 users working comfortably on a single quad Xeon 500 server with 2Gb RAM. This was just a test to see if it could be done, though - not a live production server. The max I've had on a dual box is 75. RAM really is the key here - and since it's so cheap, max out those servers!
I hope this helps
I agree that you should try out your proposed config, but it would be a never ending task to get the optimum.... For example, if you turn off background grammar checking in office 97 or 2000, then you can double the number of users. See Docid CTX737063 on Citrix web site.
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
I agree, wilsona; there are a large number of good tuning tips in various sites, such as Citrix.com, JsiInc, TheThin.net and Is-It-True.org.
Optimisation is an on-going task, but you can get a baseline by getting a number of users to run the system for a while and capturing relevant data using perfmon or similar.
Never using audio or animations will make a dramatic improvement to Office tools, but using Java-based apps, such as Oracle Financials will consume resources quickly.
You won't get the optimum on a pilot run - but at least you stand a chance of making some near-accurate guesses.
CE
Optimisation is an on-going task, but you can get a baseline by getting a number of users to run the system for a while and capturing relevant data using perfmon or similar.
Never using audio or animations will make a dramatic improvement to Office tools, but using Java-based apps, such as Oracle Financials will consume resources quickly.
You won't get the optimum on a pilot run - but at least you stand a chance of making some near-accurate guesses.
CE
Good show guys! All good stuff. I will support CitrixEngineer here on the idea of using two boxes vice one quad. The load balancing gives you great safety. Get yourself a base line of your super users and make sure you always leave yourself some overhead. It is worth the extra cost. Stuffing 10 pounds of potatoes in a 5 pound paper bag never works out very well. -- Devil Dog --
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