[THIN] Re: that question again... performance settings for pe rceived perform ance...
- From: "Rick Mack" <Rick.Mack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 09:03:23 +1000
Hi Brian,
Tom made the very valid point that with the hugely faster CPUs now
available, it really doesn't matter all that much which boost setting
you use from a practical viewpoint, performance is pretty much the same
either way.
Smaller quanta made sense, but the rules have changed with later CPU
technology. On Xeon HT CPUs in particular, possible cache thrashing due
to excessive context switching means that larger quanta are probably
preferable and foreground boost is the way to go. Since Tom's actually
done work that supports this, I'd have to say that Citrix possibly need
to update things, or do some testing to support their recommendations.
You had a second part to your question which related to the memory
optimization settings. This is probably still relevant though you don't
see a big difference in application memory/system cache memory ratios
until total memory utilization starts going up.
If you look at the settings, disregarding minimise memory used, you're
adjusting the relative priority of memory allocation between
applications and system cache, from a bias to the system cache (file) to
a bias towards application memory. So you're juggling reduced i/o
performance vs. reduced paging. I'd opt for reduced paging since that
has a much larger effect.
That's a really round about way of saying that I'm still sticking with
optimise for network applications ;-)
Regards,
Rick
Ulrich Mack
Volante Systems Ltd
18 Heussler Terrace, Milton 4064
Queensland Australia.
Ph: +61 7 3246 7704
email: rmack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
web: www.volante.com.au
-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Lilley, Brian
Sent: Wednesday, 29 September 2004 8:53 PM
To: 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: [THIN] Re: that question again... performance settings for pe
rceived perform ance...
Tim,
Many thanks for your response. I am sticking with foreground. Citrix
however, are still recommending background?!
Brianos
-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Tim Mangan
Sent: 28 September 2004 18:31
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: that question again... performance settings for
perceived perform ance...
A few answers...
1) I have done quite a bit of testing on 2003. My recommendation for
enabling the boost (foreground mode) on terminal servers applies to both
operating systems (but see #4 below).
2) 2003 works just like 2000 in regard to quanta/priority boost. Both
have the same registry setting you can use directly to tweak your
server, however, the basic fore/background control for the server sets
the registry value to the best settings for any situation.
3) Quanta is less important than the priority boost associated with
fore/back ground (unless you have the kind of applications that consume
an entire CPU). I have personally tested and shown that each TS session
receives the foreground boost for their foreground window thread.
4) The difference on this one setting is quite small, and addresses the
underlying problem in the wrong way. In the end, it's not very
important (but it is ever so slightly better to use foreground mode).
To address perceived performance, one must take a more comprehensive
approach to application control. There are several vendors that do this
(I would recommend triCerat's, but then I might be biased).
Tim Mangan
Founder, TMurgent Technologies
-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Lilley, Brian
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 12:20 PM
To: 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: [THIN] that question again... performance settings for
perceived perform ance...
ok, firstly I apologise for bringing this up again, but I never got to
the bottom of this one...
Right.. Windows 2000 had a peformance setting which (according to
Microsoft documentation), affected thread quanta and priority boost.
Supposedly, if the windows 2000 server was set to foreground, a
foreground thread would get 9 (some docs say 6!) quanta and a background
thread would get 3 and that the
threads priority is boosted. Microsoft claims that all terminal server
sessions are affected by this setting, i.e. each session has foreground
tasks for the UI and any arbitrary background tasks as instantiated by
the users session.
Ok, the Microsoft documentation makes sense, all users have foreground
thread and background threads, the multiple user sessions' foreground
threads will each get 6 quanta and their respective background tasks
will only get 3 quanta
... so the 'Foreground applications' setting seems like the appropriate
setting for the terminal server...
Not so, say a number of the leading thin client community, claiming that
only the console session is regarded as a foreground thread and so all
terminal services sessions are regarded as background threads, and so,
if the 'Foreground processes' setting is chosen, then all term server
sessions will get only 3 quanta and we will have masses of context
switching...because 3 quanta is too short??
and then......the Perceived Performance methodology states that perhaps
the additional 'minimal' overhead of context switching on modern
hardware is worth the effort for producing, not necessarily max capacity
computing but certainly much 'smoother' gui experience for multi-users
on an MS terminal server...
Ok, so now I am still none the wiser for win2000, my question to the
community is, have Microsoft reengineered this for win2003? What
should the settings be for 1. 'Programs over background services' and
2. 'allocating memory for programs over system cache?'
I understand that the beta version of 2003 provided configurable quanta
settings? has anyone any testing results? has anyone uncovered any
Microsoft documents recommending the settings for Term Servers or should
I just find better things to do with my time?
Like Brian Madden said, does this really make a difference in the real
world? So, all I want to know is, for Windows Office apps on a Windows
terminal server... can't someone just tell me what the setting should
be...
thaBrianos
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