XenServer 5.5 adds new features that enable easier virtualization management and broader integration with enterprise systems. XenServer 5.5 includes features such as consolidated backup, enhanced conversion and search tools, Active Directory integration and expanded guest support for virtually every version of Windows and Linux operating systems.
Also available today is the new 5.5 release of Citrix Essentials™ for XenServer and Hyper-V™, providing advanced virtualization management capabilities for customers using Citrix XenServer or Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 Hyper-V. Citrix Essentials 5.5 enhances both of these high-growth virtualization platforms by adding expanded storage integration, automated lab and stage management and dynamic workload balancing.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Citrix Server Best Practices
Multi-user Server Based Computing
Server sizing in Microsoft Terminal Services and Citrix XenApp 5.0 environments differs greatly from traditional server environments. Since multiple users simultaneously access these servers, the hardware needs to be dedicated and more robust than that of your traditional member server. In addition, because the Operating System needs to be specifically configured to handle a multi-user environment, these types of servers deal with hardware differently than standard member servers. Other factors include independence from other overhead processes and services that could render the access method useless in the event of their failure, and the security risks associated with hosting user sessions on servers acting as mission critical domain controllers or database servers. The server based computing model as a business access strategy is a proprietary information systems technology requiring a dedicated effort. The goal of any multi-user server based computing deployment is to deliver easy, secure, and high performance access to the end-user. Field testing has produced the following results:
Test Configuration
The benchmarking test was conducted with the following configurations to demonstrate the need for dedicated server computing and the break-point for multi-server load balancing and failover.
Server Configuration
Dell PowerEdge 2900 III
Dual Intel Quad Core Xeon 2.33GHz
(2 x 74GB SATA) RAID 1 Array
4GB Dual-Ranked DDR RAM
Windows Server 2003 Standard R2
Citrix XenApp 5.0 Enterprise
Microsoft Office Small Business 2007
Client Configuration
DELL Optiplex 755 Tower Desktop
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz
2GB DDR2 RAM
Windows VISTA Business
Test Results
A server’s degradation point was reached when its score fell below 80. The results showed a maximum of 177 simulated users concurrently running Microsoft Office applications before this threshold was reached. In this test environment, increasing the number of concurrent users beyond this would have resulted in decreased server and end-user performance. Most production environments deploy applications with much higher system resource requirements that reduce the maximum number of users supported by a single server before performance degradation. Server scaling is environment specific based on application overhead and end-user interaction classified as task oriented or power usage. This test was based on task oriented only. Dedicated computing is required regardless of circumstance.
Conclusions
1. Resource Usage: Citrix, a database driven application, makes usage of the server's hardware and operating system resources in a proprietary way that can be incompatible with Visual Database processing and performance.
2. Security & Continuity: Enabling end-user access to a database server for the purpose of hosting virtual work environments puts the production VISUAL Database at risk for a mission critical failure due to unrelated server usage.
3. Hardware Compatibility: VISUAL Database servers operate most efficiently on a Disk Subsystem configuration of RAID 1, 5. Multi-user servers operate most efficiently on a Disk Subsystem configuration of RAID 1 for simultaneous read/write operations. In addition, memory allocation switches differ between Citrix application servers and VISUAL Database servers when configuring virtual vs. conventional memory usage.
Server sizing in Microsoft Terminal Services and Citrix XenApp 5.0 environments differs greatly from traditional server environments. Since multiple users simultaneously access these servers, the hardware needs to be dedicated and more robust than that of your traditional member server. In addition, because the Operating System needs to be specifically configured to handle a multi-user environment, these types of servers deal with hardware differently than standard member servers. Other factors include independence from other overhead processes and services that could render the access method useless in the event of their failure, and the security risks associated with hosting user sessions on servers acting as mission critical domain controllers or database servers. The server based computing model as a business access strategy is a proprietary information systems technology requiring a dedicated effort. The goal of any multi-user server based computing deployment is to deliver easy, secure, and high performance access to the end-user. Field testing has produced the following results:
Test Configuration
The benchmarking test was conducted with the following configurations to demonstrate the need for dedicated server computing and the break-point for multi-server load balancing and failover.
Server Configuration
Dell PowerEdge 2900 III
Dual Intel Quad Core Xeon 2.33GHz
(2 x 74GB SATA) RAID 1 Array
4GB Dual-Ranked DDR RAM
Windows Server 2003 Standard R2
Citrix XenApp 5.0 Enterprise
Microsoft Office Small Business 2007
Client Configuration
DELL Optiplex 755 Tower Desktop
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz
2GB DDR2 RAM
Windows VISTA Business
Test Results
A server’s degradation point was reached when its score fell below 80. The results showed a maximum of 177 simulated users concurrently running Microsoft Office applications before this threshold was reached. In this test environment, increasing the number of concurrent users beyond this would have resulted in decreased server and end-user performance. Most production environments deploy applications with much higher system resource requirements that reduce the maximum number of users supported by a single server before performance degradation. Server scaling is environment specific based on application overhead and end-user interaction classified as task oriented or power usage. This test was based on task oriented only. Dedicated computing is required regardless of circumstance.
Conclusions
1. Resource Usage: Citrix, a database driven application, makes usage of the server's hardware and operating system resources in a proprietary way that can be incompatible with Visual Database processing and performance.
2. Security & Continuity: Enabling end-user access to a database server for the purpose of hosting virtual work environments puts the production VISUAL Database at risk for a mission critical failure due to unrelated server usage.
3. Hardware Compatibility: VISUAL Database servers operate most efficiently on a Disk Subsystem configuration of RAID 1, 5. Multi-user servers operate most efficiently on a Disk Subsystem configuration of RAID 1 for simultaneous read/write operations. In addition, memory allocation switches differ between Citrix application servers and VISUAL Database servers when configuring virtual vs. conventional memory usage.
Monday, June 8, 2009
XenDesktop™ and XenApp™ Are Better Together
Installing applications on a local OS has always been problematic. IT must deploy applications, manage updates, and apply patches to each desktop device individually. Citrix solved that application delivery problem 19 years ago with hosted applications, where applications are installed on servers in the data center and then accessed via any client device.
With Citrix XenDesktop, a Windows XP or Vista OS is delivered as a virtual desktop running in the data center. Applications are delivered to XenDesktop virtual desktops using XenApp. This means IT administrators no longer manage individual instances of the OS and all of the continual updates, patches, and security fixes, on each physical PC. Instead, they manage a single instance of the OS in the data center, which is combined with user settings and applications delivered by XenApp at the time of logon, to provide users with their own personalized desktop and applications delivered from the data center.
By using XenApp with XenDesktop together, organizations dramatically lower the TCO and improve IT agility for managing physical PCs compared to traditional desktop management models.
Download this white paper to learn more!
With Citrix XenDesktop, a Windows XP or Vista OS is delivered as a virtual desktop running in the data center. Applications are delivered to XenDesktop virtual desktops using XenApp. This means IT administrators no longer manage individual instances of the OS and all of the continual updates, patches, and security fixes, on each physical PC. Instead, they manage a single instance of the OS in the data center, which is combined with user settings and applications delivered by XenApp at the time of logon, to provide users with their own personalized desktop and applications delivered from the data center.
By using XenApp with XenDesktop together, organizations dramatically lower the TCO and improve IT agility for managing physical PCs compared to traditional desktop management models.
Download this white paper to learn more!
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