Just a short note to say thanks for all who contributed to this thread- it's given me much food for thought and a better understanding of potential issues. Thanks again, Regards, Alan. _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andrew Wood Sent: 10 June 2006 10:08 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: 64 bit experience - repost Alan - I think you would get a peformance increase on a citrix box with a write cache on the controller. The write operations would be marked as complete quicker as they'd be written to the cache rather than to disk. Given a citrix box is probably going to be doing a decent amount of writing (temp files, spool files, profile writes during logon, page file writes) its likely there'd be an advantage in a system having one rather not - but how significant that speed improvement would be in relation to the user experience might be difficult to quantify. I'd have thought you'd only notice the difference if, say they were all logging on at the same time, or all performing write intensive operations, and then it may be some other factor (network connection to the profile server, or database queries to the sql box) that would cause a delay and your shiney write back cache in the citrix server would be wasted. If you were looking at upgrading the controllers, maybe look at upgradeing the file/exchange/sql servers with this sort of technology first if its not already been done? _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Hutchinson, Alan Sent: 09 June 2006 16:08 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: 64 bit experience - repost aaarh - what you say makes sense - my only defense, and it's not much of one, is that it came out of a recommendation from M$ when we had some performance issues some time ago - I really hadn't put my thinking head on and questioned it. That said - forget the battery backed bit - don't you get increased controller performance and if so is it significant ? _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andrew Wood Sent: 09 June 2006 15:42 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: 64 bit experience - repost Would you need a battery backed write cache on a citrix server? Write back cache is going to improve performance if you've a raid card as the write operation is written quicker as it goes to the cache. Obviously the risk there is that you write to the controller but not to the disk - so you use a battery write cache to mitigate that. But on a citrix server its unlikely you've data that's going to need to be written to disk in that way - would suggest its an unnecessary expense for most of the time. _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Hutchinson, Alan Sent: 09 June 2006 15:13 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: 64 bit experience - repost Yes, I agree - at first sight figures not only don't look good they look seriously bad - then you get the 'reality check' as you put it with real world applications. As an aside I've had someone working with me for the past couple of months who's done some really good work on benchmarking/profileing our existing setup. So good in fact that I'm trying to scrounge one or two more servers to add so that we can measure it all again. I hope to be able to apply most of this to any new setup and with the above mentioned figures as a comparison get our own 'real world' check with some sort of confidence. As Benny says below (and I don't think that Tim was trying to put me off either) I'll probably take the opportunity to get used to the technology - cos if I don't do it now it'll be a long time before I get another chance and PS7 will probably be out by then. As an aside - I haven't seen anyone talk about battery backed write cache in any of these presentations/slides etc. but I have seen mentions that it's a must have (can't lay my hands on them when I need them). It seems that the boxes we're currently purchasing this is still an optional extra. I'm pleased I checked as I thought they were standard now. Regards, Alan. _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andrew Wood Sent: 09 June 2006 14:22 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: 64 bit experience - repost Just to follow this up I got hold of the slidedeck Benny did - my notes not exactly the same as what Bnny had [damn it being *Pub*forum :( ] Benny did some analysis testing with 64 bit comparing dual cores & 4GB ram , 32 bit servers came out better (200 active session vs 159). With 4 cores you got 319 sessions (win32) vs 171 for x64 - it was only when you added HT that x64 got up to 322. So raw test analysis - not that impressive. However, (and er... its at this point I must have been writing down what was said) in a 'reality check' with a more common application profile (office, notes, couple of java apps) - x64 for a single dual core xeon gave @ +25% more users. It was more for 2xDual cores. He did stress that the migration is not easy - incompatibilities will not just be drives, but system tools, installation routines (some of which can be 16bit) and internal scripts modifying the system files and registry) can all cause problems. Benny's suggestion was to try and get used to the technology, you'll need some time to get comfortable with it. From his findings, its mine that its not yet ready for production. hope this helps. _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andrew Wood Sent: 09 June 2006 09:55 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: 64 bit experience - repost Alan, Look hard at the performance figures - there are some instances where there are actually *lower* numbers when migrating to x64 - I'll see if I can get my hands on a copy of the presentation :) _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Hutchinson, Alan Sent: 08 June 2006 17:57 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: 64 bit experience - repost Thanks for that Andrew - one of my motives for looking at 64 bit (apart from the technical challenge) is that once we get an environment up and running smoothly here we tend not to change it for a couple of years or so (except for the usual patches and supplier software upgrades). By that time I'll be having problems with not having gone 64 bit and virtually no experience of it. I am resigned to running mainly 32 bits apps at the moment and have read of the performance hit of running wow64 so I certainly won't be selling it as a way of reducing the overall estate. I've had a quick look at the pubforum web site and can only find "Citrix Metaframe ala 64 bit - what does it give us" http://www.pubforum.net/vip/PubForum_x64_Citrix.ppt#259,1,64 bit Presentation Server by Simon Frost from Citrix. Like you said I'm not sure I believe the scalability figures given here either. At the moment I'm leaning heavily towards a simultaneous 32 and 64 bit build and see what breaks first - as I said above I'd like to get my hands dirty with this whilst I've got the opportunity. Thanks for your input - really useful. Regards, Alan. _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andrew Wood Sent: 08 June 2006 15:09 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: 64 bit experience - repost Alan, Bernhard Tritsch did great presentation on 64 bit for TS at the last pubforum. iirc the findings were essentially that the 64 bit environment didn't really offer any additional benefit at present - in fact there could be more effort involved in being an early adopter almost without gain. Issues identified included getting device drivers for printers, and other hardware, anti-virus support wasn't available from all vendors. He highlighted the fact that a lot of existing apps are going to have to run in the windows on windows emulation to allow the fact that they're 32 bit apps. You obviously can't have anything older - 16bit apps won't run. This wow functionality for many apps increased resource consumption. There were issues with the fact that they've messed around with the system32/program files directories that can lead to some applications not working correctly and being cumbersome to install or not working at all. More importantly, he load tested the same desktop app suite in a 32 and 64 bit environment. While the 64 bit environment could allow more sessions to be created the apps in those (extra) sessions did not work well and were very unreliable. Getting a user count that was reliable meant that you were hitting about the same user count as with win32. He showed that the testing M$ did to get the large amount of sessions working was performed over a large amount of time - when you tried to get many users on in a short time the environment did not hold up as well. I wish I had a copy of the powerpoint :( it was a very compelling argument to sitting tight until more apps were available natively on the x64 platform. hth _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Michael Pardee Sent: 08 June 2006 14:37 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: 64 bit experience - repost very close here. As we build our new PS4 Farm I challenged the team to do as much with the 64 bit version as possible. I think we are just rolling. I'll report back anything we find. On 6/8/06, Hutchinson, Alan <Alan.Hutchinson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: No takers? I was hoping to provoke some discussion - either I'm way behind the times and evrybody is using this or (and I can't believe this) I'm slightly ahead of the game, or everybody has got one in their labs and is keeping quiet .......... Regards, Alan. -----Original Message----- From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ] On Behalf Of Hutchinson, Alan Sent: 07 June 2006 16:17 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] 64 bit experience Well, as far as I can see this hasn't been aired for a couple of months so I'm wondering what the experience is out there. I have the opportunity for a completely new build on a new infrastructure and am toying with a simultaneous 32 and 64 PS server build to see how it goes. I've seen the following : CTX105744 - but this is dated October last year and can't immediately see any updates to this and the only thing that puts me off under functionality not supported is 'Oracle' without any further explanation. KB282423 - again a few months old. The bits that concern me with this one relate to MDAC (but on re-reading may not be an issue), and '64 bit I.E. cannot load 32-bit ActiveX controls' - which may be the killer. I was encouraged by Brian Maddens article http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?id=518 about 'dropping' a 64 bit PS server into an existing 32 farm. Although long term I don't particularly fancy running a mixed farm. Thoughts, discussions, opinions, real experience please. Regards, Alan. ************************************************ For Archives, RSS, to Unsubscribe, Subscribe or set Digest or Vacation mode use the below link: //www.freelists.org/list/thin ************************************************ ************************************************ For Archives, RSS, to Unsubscribe, Subscribe or set Digest or Vacation mode use the below link: //www.freelists.org/list/thin ************************************************ -- Michael Pardee www.blindsquirrel.org