Time for NEW Server 8-) 2

[snootalope]

What up

Here's the lay down.. I've got about 100 users here that ALL rely on our Citrix farm to do their daily routines.. The three ml370's we have now are at the end of their road.. their old, slow, and quite frankily, the 5U rack mounts look ooooogly!

I'm lookin for advice from a Citrix expert dude (or chicka!)

1. First of all, I knew this before but i've forgot it, what is the RAM to USER ratio? How much memory should i stack in each server??

2. I'm looking at Compaq's ML360's or ML380's. We're probably going to get three servers for the entire farm (of course the file server will be serparate).

3. What RAID should I use? like 36gig RAID1 or maybe 18gig RAID5? I'm totatly up for info on this one..

4. They'll be running Windows 2003 server as MEMBER servers, not DC's. With MetaFrame XP FR3. Any "heads-up" on that????

Thanks for any info!!
Snoots

"tis better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool..
then open your mouth and remove all doubt" Mark Twain

"I should of been a doctor.." Me

 

[mjbianco15]

We're using DL380's (Win2000) for our farm...these are able to hold a load of approximately 60 users with full desktops.

Here's our hardware:
Compaq DL380G3 - Dual 3Ghz w/ 1MB of cache
Battery backed write-back cache option (**this is a must**)
Raid 0+1 with 4 36GB SCSI drives
RAM..we found about 1.5GB per 30 users with full desktops...we are currently running 3GB in each box

I just finished installing my first Win2003/Citrix box (DL360). I installed all MS hotfixes and applied the latest Citrix hotfix as well (XE103W2K3011). The only problem I've run into is with roaming profiles loading/unloading...take a look into UPHClean if you use roaming profiles (

http://www.citrix4ge.de/ctxsffaq/#prof).

 

[snootalope]

Excellent.. thank you

What's the Battery backed write-back cache option?? never heard of that..

So you use Raid 0+1?? So that's mirroring and stiping both?? Can you explain that one as well??

Are you using that UPHClean on your 2k3 box? Is that an issue with 2k3 or what?? I haven't seen that anywhere..

Snoots

"tis better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool..
then open your mouth and remove all doubt" Mark Twain

"I should of been a doctor.." Me

 

[bran2235]

Here's ours:
Farm of 7 DL 360s (G1 thru G3) Our servers have Duals 2.8GH (best) w/ 512 cache / 2GB RAM each! <- You can't really do a user/RAM ratio because it all DEPENDS ON APPS, LOAD, etc... Each setup would be different.

Using RAID 1 (integrated HP5i controller) SCSI Ultra320 drives. The only problem with using this setup is that you won't get the max transfer rate with the Integrated 5i controller and with the SCSI Ultra320s. I think it will only run at 160. The DL360s have two drive bays. I use the ROC (Raid on a chip) provided by HP. Our drive config in each server is either two 9GB (Olders ones) or two 18GB drives (newer ones)...

I publish a desktop for 200 users and average about 28 users each box all day long. THe published desktop consist of OFfice 2000 (Outlook, IE, Access, Excel, etc.) a custom app we had built and some other small applications...

I LOVE THIS SETUP!!

Good luck,
Brandon

 

[bran2235]

YES! UPH CLEAN IS THE BOMB!!! Incredible!!!

Oh, Citrix recommends atleast 2 GB RAM on a CTX box- (GB per processor)...

Brandon

 

[mjbianco15]

Here's a good site for Win2003 and Citrix problems:

http://www.citrix4ge.de/tipps/w2k3issues.htm

Battery write back cache option is only $200...it helped us tremendously with overall performance. It's a small option that is hidden when you configure the server.

From our prior servers, RAID 5 was just too slow. We needed more drive space than just mirroring; however, we needed better redundancy than just stripping. 0+1 allows you to loose 1 drive at any time without loosing any peformance...it's also hot swappable just like RAID5. With 0+1 you loose space on 2 drives...so 4 36GB drives will give you 72GB of total space.

We're using UPHClean on our Win2000 and Win2003 boxes. This has help tremendously with our profiles because it seems like every MS hotfix will break something with the unloading of the profiles (1000-Userenv errors in the eventlog).

 

[snootalope]

You guys rock.. great info!

Can I use Raid 0+1 with three drives? We really don't have alot of apps, so 72 gig of space seems like a ton considering we only consume about 5 gig of 8 right now on each server..

What exactly does that write-back option do?

I emailed that person for a copy of UPHClean.. Will they just send it to me?

snoots

 

[snootalope]

Do I need to upgrade from the &quot;built in&quot; RAID controller to get the RAID 0+1 capability? What controller are you using with the 360?

 

[mjbianco15]

It look me a few emails to the UPH person, but he'll email you the software.

Raid 0+1 requires 4 drives...You could use 4 18GB and have 36GB available for the future. We found the best performance with the DL380 using either Raid 0 or Raid 0+1.

Here's a link to the BBWC:

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11063_na/11063_na.HTML

I'm not exactly sure how it helps performance; however, we saw a huge performance increase after installation. It was also recommended from a few Citrix tuning sites.

 

[mjbianco15]

We're using the standard Smart Array 5i. It will support 0+1 out of the box.

 

[bran2235]

Sounds like you could EASILY get away with two 18 GB drives!! Especially if you are going to use roaming profiles! We could get away with two 9 GB drives- The prblem is that they don't make them that small anymore!!

Yes, she will email you the program (UPH CLEAN)-

I just got a quote for a DL360 G2 / Dual 3.06 GH Processors, 2GB RAM, daul 18 GB Drives *Scsi Ultra 320s*, for $4100- They have a promotion right now (double your RAM for fee)...

Good luck,
Brandon

 

[snootalope]

yeah, i just printed that promotion.. sounds good.

Stupid question, if I go with the two 18gig drives and mirror them, how much space will that leave me to actually work with?

 

[bran2235]

That's what we are doing... I have three partitions (System, Data, and PageFile)... The PageFile is a total of 1.66 GBs... The system drive is a total of 3.96 GB- and the Data drive is 2.8... and we are running fine...!! Like I said, I wish I could buy the 9 GB drives still!!

Brandon

 

[snootalope]

Ok. So if I go with dual 36gb drives, that'll leave me about 18gb's to partiion right? cause mirroring uses some 50% for redundancy.. correct?

Is it a good practice to create a completly seperate partition for the pagefile? I've heard of that before, but never actually done it.. Where do you specify the location of the pagefile anyway?

 

[mjbianco15]

Mirror will give you half of the allocated drive space...in other words if you have 2 36GB drives that are mirrored, you will have 36GB of total drive space. We've never created a separtate partition just for the page file...we've had to move it to a separte partition to free up drive space in the past. It's found under the system applet in your control panel.

 

[bran2235]

Yes, you are correct- I would make one &quot;basic&quot; logical drive / 3 partitions.

SwapFile:
Right click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Performance Options, Virtual memory...

I would definitely put your page file on a different volume, especially on a Citrix box!

I would, at a minimum, use the same amout of space for the page file as you do for your RAM (2GB RAM = 2GB PAGEFILE, at a minimum).

Good luck,
Brandon

 

[mjbianco15]

I'm just curious...what advantages do you get by placing your page file on a separte partition. Also, what happens when your page file exceeds the partion to you allocated...do you move your page file or use partion magic or something to extend the partition?

 

[bran2235]

Less context switching- and helps performance (I think) and if you run out of room, which I never have before, I would extend the partition. I have always been taught to not put your pagefile on you system volume...

Brandon

 

[sascha6002]

hi all

back to the 5i array controller. just got the battery kit and installed it. now the controller is set to 50% read and 50% write - is there anything else that needs to be configured? running citrix on dl 360 g3 servers. microsoft is pointing out some kind of patch to enable the cache within windows:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;332023

 

[bran2235]

Hey- Your link did not work (THE MS LINK)... what is the Q#? or the KB#? I'd like to read up on this because every box in my farm uses the integrated 5i controller!!


Thanks,
Brandon