[THIN] Download Pick of the Week: Citrix Automatic Farm Tuner
- From: "Jim Kenzig http://ThinHelp.com" <jkenzig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 08:00:00 -0800 (PST)
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX108456
Note you may need to be logged into Mycitrix.com to download this utility.
Attachment: Automatic_Farm_Tuner.zip (415.3 K)
Automatic Farm Tuner
Created Date: 12/15/2005
This utility is provided ?as is.? Refer to the Disclaimer for important
information regarding this application.
Description
The Automatic Farm Tuner utility is designed to tweak the advanced registry
setting on the data collectors in a large farm and tune the data collectors to
adapt to a large farm environment. With this utility in place, all manual
performance tweaking on the data collectors can be automatically set.
The Automatic Farm Tuner gathers information about the current farm using
MFCOM. Based on the gathered data, the performance setting of the data
collectors is tweaked to be at their optimum settings for the size of the farm
and the zones contained within the farm.
Prerequisites
Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 HotFix Rollup Pack 01
Installing Automatic Farm Tuner
The Automatic Farm Tuner only needs to be installed on one server per farm.
1.
Download the package Automatic_Farm_Tuner.msp from the attached .zip file.
Note that there is a Windows 2000 version and Windows 2003 version of this tool
contained in the .zip file.
2.
Copy the package to an empty directory on the hard drive of the MetaFrame
server.
3.
Close all applications.
4.
Double-click the package and follow the on-screen instructions.
5.
Shut down and restart the server.
Note: To install this tool silently, use the /q option after the executable.
For example:
msiexec /update Automatic_Farm_Tuner.MSP /qn /norestart (optional)
Using the /q option without additional options automatically restarts the
server.
For additional information about msiexec, see the Microsoft Web site at
http://www.microsoft.com/. Search on keyword msiexec.
How to Use Automatic Farm Tuner
The Automatic Farm Tuner needs to be run under the user who is the
administrator of the Citrix Presentation farm and the Windows administrator of
the data collectors? server in the farm.
When running the Automatic Farm Tuner on a Citrix Presentation Server 4.0,
the tool automatically connects to the local Presentation Server it is
installed on. To have the tool connect to another farm, first run the mfreg
/unregserver and then mfreg servername commands.
Note: Before running the Automatic Farm Tuner, make sure the connection from
the server where users run the tool to all the data collectors in the farm are
open.
Steps:
1. Launch Automatic Farm Tuner by typing the C:\Program
Files\Citrix\System32\Automatic_Farm_Tuner.exe command from the command prompt.
2. When the Automatic Farm Tuner is launched, the first page gives general
information about the tool.
3. Click Next to start the information gathering.
If the farm contains less than 800 servers, a message appears stating that
this tool is designed for a larger farm and smaller farms do not need to be
tuned. Of course, users still have the option to go ahead and tune the farm if
they wish to do so.
On the farm settings page, the information about the user?s farm is displayed.
4. Click Next to go to the Data Collector page. The Data Collector page lists
all the primary data collectors and backup data collectors in the farm. The
primary data collectors and backup data collectors are the Presentation Servers
that are set as ?Most Preferred? and ?Preferred.?
5. Click Next to go to the Tuned Values page. The Tuned Values page by
default lists the optimized value for all the performance settings. Of course,
users can change these values as they see appropriate. The data ranges for all
the settings are listed below.
6. After the Tuned Values has been entered, click Next to go to the Summary
page.
7. Click Finish on the Summary page to apply the Tuned Values to all the Data
Collectors in the farm.
Note: During the process of applying the settings to all the data collectors,
the tool will try to verify the network paths to the data collectors before
applying the values. If the network path to any of the data collectors is not
valid, the tool will freeze its UI for a little while and prompt an error
message about the invalid network path. However, the tool will apply the
setting to all of the other data collectors it can access.
Explanation of Settings:
Zone cache entries - This setting controls how many open connections to
member servers a data collector can have at one time.
IMA Worker Thread - This setting increases IMA processing bandwidth by
increasing the amount of worker threads available to the data collector.
IMA Event Time out - This setting shortens the timeout of stale events.
Gateway Validation Interval - This setting controls how often IMA verifies
Gateway Information.
Notes for Zone cache entries settings:
Zone cache entries: If the farm size is larger then 512, the optimized value
set by the tool according to the following criteria:
? Determine the number of servers in the farm (FarmSize)
? Calculate a buffer value equal to 10% of FarmSize (Buffer = .1 * FarmSize)
? Determine Max size of servers in any zone in the farm. (MaxZoneSize)
? Determine if Load Sharing is enabled. (LoadSharing)
? If (CacheEntries < MaxZoneSize)
o If (LoadSharing == TRUE)
. Set CacheEntries = FarmSize + Buffer
o Else
. Set CacheEntries = MaxZoneSize + Buffer
Values range:
Zone cache entries - lower bound 512, upper bound 1.5 size of farm size. If
the farm size is less then 512, then 512 is the only value accepted for this
setting.
IMA Worker Thread - lower bound 128, upper bound 1024
IMA Event Time out - Lower bound 20000, upper bound 120000
Gateway Validation Interval - Lower bound 30000, upper bound 300000
Note: If the data input in any of the four settings are out of the range, the
Automatic Farm Tuner tool shows a red dot with an exclamation mark next to the
data field. Unless the value is corrected, users will not be able to enter data
in any other field or click any button on the Tuned Values page.
Usage:
The IMA Worker Thread, IMA Event Timeout, and Gateway Validation Interval
settings are used mainly for large farms whose size is greater than 800
servers. If the farm size is less than 800 servers, these three values are
empty by default. Users can set the values for these three settings by
selecting the check box on the page. By clicking the ?Optimized Value? button,
the three settings? values are returned to their optimized value. If the farm
size is less than 800 servers, these three settings are turned off by clicking
of the ?Optimized Value? button. The ?Default Values? button turns the values
of these three settings to their default value.
Uninstalling Automatic Farm Tuner
1.
From the Start menu, select Setting > Control Panel.
2.
In Control Panel, double-click Add/Remove Programs.
3.
Highlight ?Citrix Hotfix Automatic_Farm_Tuner? and click Remove.
4.
Follow the directions on-screen.
Jim Kenzig
CEO The Kenzig Group
http://www.kenzig.com
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