That has set me thinking - I am starting to wonder if the initial virtual machine that I built up as a Citrix server was P2V'ed from an existing Terminal Server by my boss? When he handed it to me it was just a blank Windows Server 2003 R2 system - but given some of the things he has pulled off in my time here, I wouldn't put it past him P2V'ing it and not telling me...
2009/5/7 Sherry Abercrombie <[email protected]> > 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/> ~
