Soooo...you're saying that pig of a Visual FoxPro based app that regularly pegs the processor and that *mumble* client of mine runs isn't going to benefit by virtualization? o_0 Actually, I jest, partially. I am in the middle of deploying some Citrix servers on Microsoft Virtual Server '05, but the major reason is business continuity, not performance. The client is willing to take a tradeoff on hardware and performance vs. recoverability and management for the following reasons: - System updates for the app come out fairly often, and the system needs a rapid rollback strategy - Client is in the middle of an acquisition phase and needs to be able to deploy more resources quickly - Client loves having machines that can be clones, backed up, rolled back, and versioned according to those needs - Client is willing to oversubscribe on hardware in order to have scalability, reliability and redundancy - Client is planning on having a copy of their VM image taken to a remote datacenter for disaster recovery purposes The basic strategy and argument for having app servers on virtual machines is to overspend on hardware capacity by 20-40% in order to have rapid failover, fail-back and recovery. We've demonstrated being able to roll back to a previous version of the Virtual Hard Disk file via Volume Shadow Copy in a case where the system becomes compromised by spyware or a bad application update, and that has become a compelling business case for virtualization. On 5/9/05, Ron Oglesby <roglesby@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Well it depends. > > I run a one-off server build on it with low utilization right now. I > also run my prod WI/CSG on it. > > Now I just did a presentation on this at Briforum and the real key is > what your bottleneck is on Phys machines. If you run into virtual > address space limitations on the OS but have very low Proc and mem > utilization you probably have a real good fit. Now if you run into > limitations of physical resources, those limitations will show up a > little earlier in a VM environment. > > You have to remember the idea, the processor time is being scheduled, > and while it is a very light overhead it is still an overhead. > Now the next thing I can say is people running into OS limits have great > success, People with crappy apps (Ie lots of ring 0 system calls, > context switches etc) can experience a performance reduction. I had one > client that with everything set per VMware recommendations and pegging > VMs to single procs still lost 40% of their users per proc when compared > to physical machines. This was a result of the applications being run. > > If you have really well behaved/written apps you can have better > results. > > Now, once you get beyond those initial performance things there are > other reasons for deploying Citrix (or any server) on VM architecture, > but that's another thread. > > Ron > > Ron Oglesby > Director of Technical Architecture > > RapidApp, Chicago > Office: 312 372 7188 > Mobile: 815 325 7618 > email: roglesby@xxxxxxxxxxxx > > -----Original Message----- > From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On > Behalf Of msemon@xxxxxxx > Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 10:39 AM > To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: [THIN] Re: Citrix on VMWare > > I am not sure I would put this on your primary production farm. We saw > some > performance issues with a client who had installed on primary production > farm. You might look at secondary silo. Also, check out Ron's book on > VMWare ESX server which should be in book stores any day. > > Mike > > Original Message: > ----------------- > From: Bermuda Boy phits_right@xxxxxxxxxxx > Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 10:52:21 -0300 > To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: [THIN] Citrix on VMWare > > Hi all, > > I was wondering whether anybody had performed the "daunting?" task of > installing any of the Metaframe suite on VMWare? I was thinking of > putting > CSG and/or the Web Interface server in a virtualized environment. > > Your feed back is encouraged :-) > > Bermuda Boy > > Sean B. McLaughlin esq. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > mail2web - Check your email from the web at > http://mail2web.com/ . > > ******************************************************** > This Weeks Sponsor: ThinPrint GmbH > Now available: The new version .print Engine 6.2 with SSL encryption > and certificate management. > http://www.thinprint.com > ********************************************************** > Useful Thin Client Computing Links are available at: > http://thin.net/links.cfm > ThinWiki community - Excellent SBC Search Capabilities! > http://www.thinwiki.com > *********************************************************** > For Archives, to Unsubscribe, Subscribe or > set Digest or Vacation mode use the below link: > http://thin.net/citrixlist.cfm > ******************************************************** > This Weeks Sponsor: ThinPrint GmbH > Now available: The new version .print Engine 6.2 with SSL encryption > and certificate management. > http://www.thinprint.com > ********************************************************** > Useful Thin Client Computing Links are available at: > http://thin.net/links.cfm > ThinWiki community - Excellent SBC Search Capabilities! > http://www.thinwiki.com > *********************************************************** > For Archives, to Unsubscribe, Subscribe or > set Digest or Vacation mode use the below link: > http://thin.net/citrixlist.cfm > -- -------------- Give a man a match, and he'll be warm for a minute. But set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.