We 6 Citrix servers virtualized. When we P2V'd them using the VMWare tool, we saw the same things that you are reporting, built one up from scratch, and cloned it, and no longer see those issues. DISCLAIMER: We are on an excruciatingly old version of Citrix Metaframe (1.7 I think), and Windows 2000 server.
On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 7:58 AM, James Rankin <[email protected]> wrote: > In amongst my Google browsing, I came across these guidelines, can anyone > give any pointers as to the efficacy of this advice (as I am loth just to > use something I found on a random webpage) :-) > > *Memory**For a citrix (SBC) environment it is necesarry to do some tuning > on vmware.* > > *First of all it is better to turn off TP memory sharing. You can do this > by not installing the memory ballooning driver when installing vmware tools > inside the citrix box.* > * Page Sharing* > > *Disable Page sharing reduces the VMkernel overhead inside an virtual > citrix (SBC) server. A SBC server makes a lot of memory changes which are > all getting translated by vmware. By turning off page sharing the vmkernel > doenst pay attention to this.* > *To turn off page sharing. Change the following in vmware under Advanced > Settings.* > > *Mem.ShareScanTotal = 0* > * * *Mem.ShareScanVM = 0PAE* *This option needs to be avoided for a citrix > (SBC) server. This option means that vmkernel uses most of the memory under > the 4gb. Its better to set this option in advanced settings to * > > *Mem.AllocHighThreshold = 4096* > > > 2009/5/7 Mike Semon <[email protected]> > >> That all sounds good. We don’t use reservations and give them unlimited >> in limits also. HA and DRS complain if you have two much resources reserved >> or Vm’s with too much memory and vCPU’s. But your situation does not sound >> like that is the case. >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> *From:* James Rankin [mailto:[email protected]] >> *Sent:* Thursday, May 07, 2009 6:54 AM >> *To:* NT System Admin Issues >> *Subject:* Re: Citrix on VMWare platform >> >> >> >> We install Citrix after cloning, the template is just a base terminal >> server with all required applications. We also use fiber SAN. >> >> Strange thing is, we never get any alerts, either on the ESX hosts, the >> SAN, or anywhere else. Everything seems to be running tickety-boo, but >> clearly it isn't. The limits for the guest servers are set to "Unlimited" in >> the limits under Resource Allocation and there are no reservations - is this >> generally good practice? >> >> 2009/5/7 Mike Semon <[email protected]> >> >> We are using SAN based storage. Our SAN storage is EMC Clariion CX3-80 >> which is Fibre channel. Does your template include Citrix on build? Normally >> I start with my Windows 2003 R2 template and install Citrix on each. Have >> seen problems with Citrix boxes that have been P2v’d or created from >> templates with Citrix installed. Kind of like the problems we used to see if >> you tried to image Citrix server. The Citrix servers appear to have adequate >> resources. What do your ESX hosts look like? If you are trying to VMotion >> them or move them with DRS and it’s complaining that is usually a sign of a >> problem with resources on host. Check your memory and CPU reservations and >> resources. >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> *From:* James Rankin [mailto:[email protected]] >> *Sent:* Thursday, May 07, 2009 6:40 AM >> >> >> *To:* NT System Admin Issues >> >> *Subject:* Re: Citrix on VMWare platform >> >> >> >> Got dual CPUs and 4GB of RAM for each server. The original server was >> built from scratch on VMWare and converted to a template which has been >> cloned for all the others. >> >> Do you use SAN-based storage? We have an IBM DS4000. One of the most >> notable performance hits is when the Citrix servers are migrated by the DRS, >> they seem to drag right into the ground at that point. >> >> 2009/5/7 Mike Semon <[email protected]> >> >> We are running Citrix MPS 4.5 on VMware ESX 3.5 u3. Our performance is ok. >> Citrix tells us to expect around 30 per Vm depending on type of apps. >> >> Were these Citrix servers P2V’d? Did you create them from templates? What >> kind of CPU and memory do you have allocated for each VM? >> >> >> >> Mike >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> *From:* James Rankin [mailto:[email protected]] >> *Sent:* Thursday, May 07, 2009 4:09 AM >> *To:* NT System Admin Issues >> *Subject:* Citrix on VMWare platform >> >> >> >> Anyone running Citrix MPS 4.5 on VMWare ESX 3.5? We virtualised our entire >> infrastructure last year. The performance of the standard systems has been >> excellent (for instance, our SQL servers and Exchange 2007 systems run >> pretty much exactly as they did before). However the Citrix servers are very >> hit-and-miss - slow logons, application hangs, systems freezing, etc., runs >> poorly when more than seven or eight users logged on to each server. I have >> just taken a subset of our users and put them back onto a physical Citrix >> server, and straight away the performance is instantly better, the logon >> time is considerably faster to start with. >> >> Admittedly we aren't expecting our virtualised systems to perform as well >> as a dedicated physical system, but the performance degradation appears to >> be hugely magnified with regards to the Citrix systems. Is anyone else >> running Citrix farms on ESX, and if so, are they experiencing similar >> performance issues, and how are they getting around them? >> >> TIA, >> >> >> >> JRR >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > > > > > -- Sherry Abercrombie "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clarke Sent from Haslet, TX, United States ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
