[THIN] Re: Citrix on VMWare

  • From: "Russell Robertson" <russell.robertson@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 09:49:18 +0100

We have been using it for general testing and have had no problems. We
have not been stressing either the physical machines or the virtual ones
though.
 
Still prefer VMware though and would rather use it for everything other
than the most casual use.
 
Russell
Russell Robertson
Skibo Technologies
ABERDEEN
AB22 8GU
T: +44 (0)1224 355250
W: www.skibo.com <http://www.skibo.com/> 



________________________________

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Joe Shonk
Sent: 10 May 2005 06:36
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: Citrix on VMWare



What has been your take on Microsoft's Virtual Server?  Word on the
street is it is still very unreliable and is worse now than when MS
purchased the technology.

 

Joe

 

________________________________

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 > 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. 

Other related posts: