THose are good reasons for virtualization, but you may also want to to look at something like First Defense ISR as well, it can provide instant roll back with a running server without the cost of virtualization www.leapfrogsoftware.com Steve Greenberg Thin Client Computing 34522 N. Scottsdale Rd. suite D8453 Scottsdale, AZ 85262 (602) 432-8649 (602) 296-0411 fax steveg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Durf Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 8:18 PM To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: Citrix on VMWare 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 <mailto: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. 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