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xenapp admin taking a look at vworkspace - any other converts?
Hi everyone,
Been doing a lot of reading (and video watching) about vworkspace this past week. Hoping to get pricing info but the sales team doesn't seem to want to take my money, err, call me back!
We are finishing up our xenapp 4.5 to xenapp 6 migration and while for the most part things are running well, I have never so much felt like a citrix beta tester as I have during this rollout. Wow! Not to mention the lack of support included (or not) with our licenses. Very frustrating.
Obviously we're very excited about sp1/remotefx and the eventual citrix trickle-down of these improvements, but I am trying to look around for what else is out there.
Our environment is 100% wan-based clients connecting to a farm in a colo. All servers are running across a 2-node hyper-v cluster (poweredge t710s) with the exception of the citrix servers themselves; those are dell poweredge r210s.
While we are most interested in vworkspace in conjunction with RDSH, I am open to the idea of VDI (just haven't seen it be affordable). It would be nice to get a solidly performing and affordable vdi solution though, as there are obviously aspects of RDSH/xenapp that we all love to hate (lack of cached exchange mode for example).
Has anyone here made this leap? How is the VW experience compared to xenapp? At a glance the backend components (web, gateway, etc) look fairly similar. I am most concerned of course about user experience, and bandwidth. Most of the client sites are either single or dual T1s, and from the same network provider as our colo so the latency tends to be 25ms or less (much less in some cases). We are in the middle of a Lync migration, so as that rolls out we will no longer be tied to voice/data combo T1s and will instead be open to faster data-only lines - but for the foreseeable future we are dealing with 1.5 mbits for offices with less than 15 users and 3 mbits for offices with up to 40-50 users.
Any comments/suggestions/anecdotes are welcome!
Thanks,
Wes
Dell-Matt-E
57 Posts
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March 3rd, 2011 08:00
Apologies Wes, most unlike Sales not to return a call :-). Can you tell me who or where you called and left a message and I can then follow up and put you in touch with the appropriate sales person.
With regards to moving from XenApp to vWorkspace I certaily have customers taht have done this, or still have both products in the mix. It would be a long response to type as I would also like to highlight product differences and drill down into more detail with regards to your actual business drivers and requirements.
If you can send me your details via a private message I will arrange for sales and\or a systems consultant to get in touch.
Regards
Matt
markh21
98 Posts
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March 4th, 2011 04:00
I've been working on a hosting environment running vWorkspace to provide terminal services to SMB market.
One comment - RDSH/xenapp that we all love to hate (lack of cached exchange mode for example). - with Outlook 2010 you can actually enable cached mode on Terminal Servers if you need to...but obviously in a multiserver environment its a challenge bacause you either have to copy it each time to the network or recreate it when they login to a new server (and don't clean off the local profiles at logout)
Now, back to vWorkspace
Pro's
First off, vWorkspace support and the rest of the vWorkspace gang are amazing to work with.
Image quality of vworkspace/RDP is amazing and the users love it
Con's
It can pull some serious bandwidth because of the multiplexing of the data to give you that great performance
Even when working with Quest I've still had serious issues with typing lag on many of my clients.
MAC Client is workable but I wouldn't say something I would brag about. Being based on X11 is a huge problem in my opinion. It looks too much like an emulator interface (black mouse anyone)
Our decision
I've been forced to actually go with Xenapp 6 as I've had less problems with performance, although on the flip side, I had users bitching the text wasn't as clear (sigh). I've had to disable the graphics compression and that helped but I imaging at some point I will get lag issues yet again. Can't win for losing.
MAC integration and overall polish of the client is way way better.
I am not giving up on vWorkspace though because long term I think the vDI integration is much better then citrix..but for plain old terminal services its been a tough sell...
pesos1
10 Posts
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March 5th, 2011 23:00
no worries Matt, Ryan got in touch with me.
pesos1
10 Posts
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March 5th, 2011 23:00
Thanks Mark, very interesting. (and yes, cached mode while possible to enable is not workable on a terminal server due to the OST challenge as we have 5 servers in the farm - i have also heard there are issues with the search index when you do try to use it).
When you say you were having lag issues with vworkspace, was that because your WAN link was saturated? Most of our sites are either single or bonded T1s but we are working to get client sites that need it upgraded to 5mbit links. Latency is typically 30ms or less, much less in some cases.
markh21
98 Posts
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March 6th, 2011 00:00
Our main link is from datacenter billed on usage and will scale to 1gbps so no saturation.
I think the link out of the remote office was main problem...about 10-30 ms with 20 users with a 1mbps upstream.
Overall I think the problem is really that it can be very bandwidth heavy to provide the quality of desktop. I by myself with a network monitor on my pc scrolling up and down on a pdf pulled 13mbps down and about 500k up...
I used citrix to do the same thing and it used about 3-5mbps and about 30k...but whereas vworkspace didn't lag on the document refresh...citrix did (ie it wasn't smooth scrolling)
pesos1
10 Posts
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March 6th, 2011 01:00
3-5mbps on one user? that doesn't make sense... we have 30 or so users on a 1.5 mbit T1 link???
markh21
98 Posts
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March 6th, 2011 01:00
It was an extreme case for load/performance testing.
If you install a local BW monitor on a desktop…then login to your citrix and open a PDF then scroll up and down a grahic type pdf (say pdf of visio diagram ) really fast you will basically force a maximum B/W usage out of the client
Its extreme but it does show you how the 2 different types of clients will behave when faced with someone doing something silly like that.
Obviously not typically but someone scrolling through a big PDF is also not really that extreme either
markh21
98 Posts
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March 6th, 2011 17:00
I had the same problem…Let me see if I figured out what the problem was..I know I talked to support about it.
pesos1
10 Posts
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March 6th, 2011 17:00
ah, I see!
I set up a couple test VMs (one rdsh and one server to be the vworkspace server) - I installed all vworkspace components except the actual rdsh piece onto the VM, and once I rebooted, I could no longer RDP into that box - very strange. I can telnet to it on port 3389 from itself, but rdp fails to connect. something seems to have gone wrong during my install or something - will try again when i have the time
markh21
98 Posts
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March 6th, 2011 18:00
I can’t seem to find the information but I seem to think it was because I did the install over RDP vs using the actual real console but I can’t remember.
I do know eventually I did resolve it but for whatever reason I can’t find anything on how.
pesos1
10 Posts
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March 7th, 2011 04:00
interesting - i likely installed via rdp as well. kind of janky that you can't install it via rdp? so perhaps I should do a repair install from the console?
Dell-Matt-E
57 Posts
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March 7th, 2011 08:00
I install over RDP all the time so that shouldn't be the issue. If you look at the server itself can you check the registry to ensure that it is still listening on RDP port 3389? Any connectivity issues I have always have tendeded to be firewall related, but if you can telnet to 3389 that wouldn't make sense.
pesos1
10 Posts
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March 7th, 2011 14:00
yes listening on 3389 (which i can telnet too) - doesn't work even with firewall disabled...
pesos1
10 Posts
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March 7th, 2011 15:00
Hi Marc, not sure this is the same issue... I have two servers I have created:
1) RFX (win2008r2sp1 with rdsh role installed, no quest software installed yet)
2) RGW (win2008r2sp1 with vworkspace installed, but custom install and no rdsh component installed)
It is the RGW server that I cannot rdp to. 3389 is still set in the registry, and it is listening on that port. I can telnet to the port from the box itself, but trying rdp connections (even from itself) fails...
DELL-Marc Z
30 Posts
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March 7th, 2011 15:00
We have a public hotfix for this issue. The problem will occur when you add an RDSH to the vWorkspace farm without having installed the vW TS/RDSH role. The root of the problem is that the RDP port gets set to 0.
If you want to fix it manually (without the hotfix), make sure the following:
1. go to the vW Console and disable EOP Xtream: Terminal Servers > > right-click > Properties > Experience Optimization > EOP disable > Apply. This will disable EOP Xtream temporarily until you have problem resolved.
2. Make sure the following reg value is set:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp
PortNumber = 3389
3. Reboot the RDSH server.
At this point you should be able to RDP to machine. After doing that, you can enabled EOP Xtream again (note: you will need to reboot the RDSH again) and it should work just fine.