WHITE PAPER | Citrix XenApp 6

S c aling B ig DaaS and S aaS Deployments for C itrix S ervic e P roviders

Scaling to 1,000 servers in a single farm

www.citrix.com

Contents
1.0
1.1

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Citrix Service Provider Reference Architecture ............................................................................................4

2.0
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.3.3 2.3.4 2.3.5 2.4 2.5 2.6

Product and Solution Overview .......................................................................................................... 5

Citrix XenApp 6 .............................................................................................................................................5 XenApp simulated environment ..................................................................................................................5 XenApp configuration ..................................................................................................................................5 Data Store (DS) .............................................................................................................................................6 Data Collector (DC) .......................................................................................................................................8 XML server .................................................................................................................................................12 License server .............................................................................................................................................13 Delivery Services Console (DSC) .................................................................................................................16 Web Interface configuration ......................................................................................................................17 Worker Group configuration ......................................................................................................................17 Citrix policy configuration ..........................................................................................................................21

3.0
3.1 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.2 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.3 3.4

Scalability Results and Analysis .........................................................................................................25

Farm environment .....................................................................................................................................25 Network configuration ...............................................................................................................................25 Farm-wide IMA bandwidth consumption ..................................................................................................25 XenApp performance results .....................................................................................................................30 Data collector performance .......................................................................................................................30 Data store performance .............................................................................................................................31 Worker Groups ...........................................................................................................................................32 Citrix farm policies and bandwidth ............................................................................................................32

4.0

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................34

Page 2

1.0 Introduction
XenApp is an on-demand application delivery solution that enables any Windows application to be virtualized, centralized and managed in the datacenter and instantly delivered as a service to users anywhere on any device. This means subscribers can use whatever device they chooselaptop, tablet, smartphonebut still access familiar Windows desktops and business applications that the service provider manages. XenApp enables service providers to centrally manage a single instance of each application and deliver it to users for online and offline use, providing a high-definition experience. It delivers 99.999 percent application availability and is proven with 25 million applications in production and over 100 million users worldwide. Citrix XenApp 6 introduces exciting new enhancements for advanced management and scalability, a rich multimedia experience over any network and self-service applications with universal device support from PC to Mac to smartphone. With full support for Windows Server 2008 R2 and seamless integration with Microsoft App-V, XenApp 6 provides session and application virtualization technologies that make it easy for service providers to centrally manage applications using any combination of local and hosted delivery to best fit their unique requirements. This whitepaper examines the architecture and design of the Citrix XenApp solution and its ability to provide a scalable and high availability infrastructure while delivering on-demand access to applications (SaaS) and desktops (DaaS) from the cloud.

Page 3

1.1

Citrix Service Provider Reference Architecture

The Citrix Service Provider Reference Architecture model describes the complete solution available to service providers for delivering a bundle of applications, desktops and services to subscribers in SaaS and DaaS models. For more information regarding the CSP Reference Architecture see http://www.citrix.com/skb/articles/RDY2524.

Figure 1 - CSP Architecture

1.2

Multi-tenant SaaS/DaaS
The multi-tenant SaaS/DaaS module comprises four sub-components: 1. Windows applications and desktops 2. Web-based SaaS 3. Back-office SaaS 4. Third-party SaaS This module is the core component of the service provider datacenter(s) it enables multitenant delivery of virtual applications (SaaS) and desktops (DaaS). Within this module, applications and desktops are virtualized, and subscriber partitions and Active Directory boundaries are defined, which are centrally governed by XenApp systems. Windows desktops and applications are powered by XenApp, enabling service providers to deliver any applicationWindows, Web, SaaS, back office or third-partyto their subscribers.
Page 4

2.0 Product and Solution Overview

2.1 Citrix XenApp 6
XenApp is the most commonly adapted and deployed technology for centrally managing applications and delivering their functionality as a service. XenApp 6 is certified for Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Server, and supports virtually any custom or commercially packaged Windows or Web application. XenApp provides an exceptional foundation to build highly scalable, secure, manageable access solutions that reduce computing costs and increase the utility of any information system. XenApp 6 introduces significant enhancements that simplify application management and bring unprecedented levels of scalability that increase cost savings and datacenter efficiency. For detailed steps on installing XenApp 6 for Windows Server 2008 R2 please visit http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/index.jsp?topic=/xenapp/xenapp6-w2k8wrapper.html.

2.2

XenApp simulated environment

CSP Corporation is a fictional company used for illustrative purposes. CSP Corporation is in the process of identifying a solution that will satisfy the requirements of offering dedicated and secure Windows-based applications and desktops as a service. To achieve this goal, Citrix products will be introduced to maximize the efforts of the company. The data compiled in this whitepaper are the results of real-time simulations and provide the reference used to satisfy CSP Corporations infrastructure requirements with scalable, secure and reliable Citrix solutions.

2.3

XenApp configuration
A review of the primary components of the XenApp farm and its architectural design is outlined below with details about each components role in the architected solution.

Page 5

Figure 2 - XenApp infrastructure components

2.3.1 Data Store (DS)

The data store is a central repository for all of the configuration information for the XenApp farm. This includes items like published applications, worker groups and load evaluators. During server startup, the IMA Service queries the data store for initialization information. This is the most CPU-intensive action for the data store, as the IMA Service initialization process ensures the local host cache (LHC) is consistent with the data store. When multiple servers are booted, multiple requests for initialization information are made to the data store at the same time. During normal farm operation, the data store is accessed every 30 minutes by each server to ensure its LHC is current. The data store is also accessed if the farm configuration is modified or static information is requested by tools such as the Delivery Service Console (DSC) or other Citrix query-based utilities. However, the data store is not accessed when a user logs in, disconnects, or reconnects to the farm. All the information needed for a client to establish a connection to a XenApp server is stored in the LHC, with the exception of licensing details.

Figure 3 - Data store infrastructure

Page 6

How much storage is needed for the data store database? To estimate the database storage requirements, it is necessary to be aware of the amount of disk space that common XenApp objects consume. This helps with estimating the initial size of the database which, in turn, reduces the frequency of database file size increases as new objects are created. This estimate is important because minimizing database file size increases stabilizes the performance of the data store. XenApp object Initial farm creation Add one server to the farm Application publication o 10 hosting servers o 500 users o default icon Application publication o 10 hosting servers o 5 user groups o default icon Application publication o 32-bit color icon Application publication o 256-bit color icon Create one worker group Create one load evaluator Apply the load evaluator o 10 servers
Table 1 - XenApp common object sizes

Size (KB) 1264 67 168

24

48 408 2 8 16

Given CSP Corporations goal, an environment consisting of 1,000 hosted or streamed applications with high resolution icons (256-bit), 100 worker groups to serve as tenant silos, and 10 load evaluators, will require an IMA data store of approximately 500MB.

What type of database should be used to host the data store? To accommodate a farm of this scale, an enterprise-capable database server should be selected. The database selection should be made based on expertise among farm administrators. Based on the environment described above and on current in-house
Page 7

expertise, CSP Corporation will deploy the XenApp environment utilizing Microsoft SQL Server 2008. However, if the company had Oracle database expertise, Oracle could have been used for the deployment.

What type of hardware is needed to support 1,000 servers? For 1,000 servers in a single XenApp farm, it is recommended that a database server with an Intel Xeon class or better quad-core processor be dedicated to hosting the data store.. The processing power of the database server determines the speed of administrative activities such as: o starting the IMA Service o enumerating servers via the Delivery Services Console o adding a published application The database server CSP Corporation selected was an Intel quad-core 1.6GHZ processor with 4GB of RAM.

2.3.2 Data Collector (DC)

The data collector is responsible for managing all of the dynamic information in the farm. Dynamic information consists of items that change often such as connected sessions, disconnected sessions, and server loads. The data collector is responsible for knowing the global state of the farm. The data collector also performs resolutions. A resolution is a process where, upon user request, the data collector determines the least-loaded server that is hosting a load-balanced published application or desktop.

How many zones are needed to support 1,000 servers? Proper XenApp zone design is one of the most important steps in building a stable, high-performing farm. For CSP Corporations purposes, a site can be associated with a separate geographical region. Figure 4 outlines key decision points when architecting the zone design based on the topology of the infrastructure.

Page 8

Figure 4 - Zone design decision considerations

Consider these zone design guidelines: Minimize the number of zones in your farm. The fewer zones in a farm, the more scalable the farm. Every time a dynamic event occurs, such as a logon, logoff, or disconnect, an update is sent to the data collector. The data collector must then forward the update to all other data collectors in the farm, which consumes bandwidth and CPU. Data collectors must keep up with the events in other zones as well as their own. Create zones for major datacenters in different geographic regions. If a site has a small number of servers, group that site in a larger sites zone. If your organization has small sites with low bandwidth or unreliable connectivity, do not place those sites in their own zone. Instead, group them with other sites that have better connectivity. When combined with other zones, this might form a hub-and-spoke zone configuration. If you have more than five sites, group the smaller sites with the larger zones. Citrix recommends a maximum of five zones.

In the case of CSP Corporation, a single zone of 1000 servers is optimal as the environment consists of a single site hosting all of the XenApp servers. This design remains true regardless of how tenants are isolated at the network level. TCP port 2512 must be open to allow IMA communications to and from the member servers and data collector. As shown in Figure 4, zones should be based on physical topology rather than on network subnets or VLANs.

Page 9

Figure 5 - CSP Corporation single zone design

In the case where the XenApp servers are located in different sites, the flow chart shown in Figure 3 provides guidance on the optimal zone design for that environment. Is a backup data collector needed for this farm? In order to satisfy the business requirements for CSP Corporation, a dedicated backup data collector has been installed in each zone. In the event the primary data collector goes offline, this dedicated server is available to assume the data collector role. If the data collector role is assumed by a server that is not dedicated to the task, resource contention between application users and the data collector operations can result in data collector events getting queued. What type of hardware is recommended for the data collector? The data collector stores all dynamic information in memory; therefore, the data collector should have enough RAM to store all of the records. Memory usage will vary based on the number of published applications, number of servers and number of user sessions in the farm. The CPU plays an important role in determining the number of resolutions the data collector can process in conjunction with managing dynamic information. The data collector for the CSP Corporation was an Intel Xeon 2.83 GHz quad-core processor with 4GB of memory. Figure 6 shows the published application memory usage on the data collector. The average published application consumes about 39KB of memory.

Page 10

Figure 6 - IMA memory consumptionapplication variant

Figure 7 shows the memory usage based on the number of connected sessions. The average session consumes about 1.52KB of memory on the data collector.

Figure 7 - IMA memory consumptionsession variant

Figure 8 references the memory usage based on varying numbers of servers. Each server that joins a farm consumes about 329KB of memory.

Page 11

Figure 8 - IMA memory consumptionserver variant

For CSP Corporation, the administrators expect to host 2,000 published applications in the 1,000 server farm. They also expect that the maximum number of user sessions during peak hours of operation will be approximately 100,000 sessions. Using the data from the charts above, the data collector will consume about 560MB of memory during peak time.

Note: In a multi zone design, all data collectors in the farm should be sized to accommodate the largest zone. Data collectors manage the global state of the farm, so all servers acting in this role should have the same processing capability, regardless of the size of their particular zone. Likewise if the data collector for one zone is dedicated, data collectors for the other zones in the farm should be dedicated as well.

2.3.3 XML server

The XML service is a component of XenApp. The XML service communicates published application information to servers running the Web Interface. When users connect and log on to the Web Interface server through their Web browser, they are presented with a list of published applications and desktops as provided by the XML service. When the user selects one of the resources, the XML service responds with the address of a server on which the application is published.

Page 12

Figure 9 - XML service design

To support the burst logon requirement for the 100,000 users, CSP Corporation configured the XML Service role on the data collector, backup data collector, and two additional member servers. In addition, the Web Interface site was configured to load balance requests across all servers providing the XML Service.

2.3.4 License server

The license server is responsible for storing and managing Citrix licenses. When users connect to a XenApp server, the XenApp server checks out a license from the license server on behalf of the client device. Subsequent connections from the same client device share the same license. Figure 10 illustrates various license server design considerations.

Page 13

Figure 10 - License server design

How many license servers are necessary? A single license server can adequately handle the load placed on it by a thousand XenApp servers (single or multiple farms) and tens of thousands of users. Multiple license servers can also be deployed for a single farm. However, the drawback to having multiple license servers is that licenses are not shared between servers. Note: In the case where a farm spans multiple sites, the license server should be placed at the site that hosts the most users.

What type of hardware is recommended for the license server? One of the most important considerations in determining license server requirements is processor speed. Although CPU usage is not usually high, CPU time increases as license check-out requests are made and License Management Console activity increases. The time it takes to execute these transactions is dependent on the speed of the CPU. In general, the size of the farm and the number of simultaneous client connections dictate the power of the server needed for the licensing feature. To appropriately size the license server, determine the number of client logins per second in the farm deployment. To do this, you can use the Performance Monitor counters available within XenApp and the load evaluator logging feature. This analysis determines the processor speed needed for optimal license server performance. Additionally, the license server process is single threaded. So, multiple processors do not increase performance. The license server uses approximately 4.5KB of memory
Page 14

for every session license and 39KB of memory for every start-up license that is inuse. The license server is capable of processing 248 license check-out requests per second. In a scenario where all users log in over the course of 30 minutes, a single license server would be able to handle 446,400 users. The license server configured for CSP Corporation is a standalone Intel Xeon 2.83 GHz quad-core processor with 4GB of RAM.

How much bandwidth is used during license consumption? When deploying a license server, it is important to understand the communication paths and bandwidth costs associated with licensing, especially when communication is over a WAN. When a XenApp server is brought online, it establishes a static connection to the license server and checks out a Citrix startup license. This action consumes 1.87 KB of bandwidth and occurs for every server in the farm. Once a startup license is checked out, the server holds this license until it is taken offline or the license server location is changed. When a user logs in, the XenApp server requests a license from the license server on behalf of the client device. The amount of bandwidth consumed for a license checkout request or check-in request is 0.745KB. Every 5 minutes, each XenApp server checks to ensure the license server remains available. The amount of bandwidth in this transaction is 416 bytes for each server. The timing of this verification is based on the start time of the IMA Service.

Is the license server a single point of failure? If a XenApp server cannot contact the license server, the XenApp server enters a grace period in which user connections are allowed for 720 hours. If the XenApp server is unable to contact the license server during the grace period, connections are denied when the grace period expires. For CSP Corporation, the 720-hour grace period provides more than enough time for recovery in the event of a failure. However, for some environments, the standard grace period might not be adequate. In such cases, a cold standby of the license server can be built into the farm. If the license server goes offline, the administrator can bring up a backup license server. In the cases where failover with no administrative interaction is required, Microsoft Clustering Services can be used to deliver hardware-based fault tolerance for the license server. For more information on setting up the license server in a clustered environment, refer to the Citrix Licensing section of Citrix eDocs.
Page 15

2.3.5 Delivery Services Console (DSC)

The Delivery Services Console, as shown in Figure 11, provides Citrix administrators the ability to manage users, published applications, create worker groups, and perform a variety of other tasks associated with the XenApp farm. The console gathers farm information from two sources: o The data store is used to collect static information o The data collector is queried to assemble dynamic information such as user sessions

Figure 11 - Citrix Delivery Services Console

How should the farm be managed from remote locations? The Delivery Services Console can be run from a XenApp server in the farm or from a standalone computer running either Windows 2003, Windows 2008, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 7, or Windows Vista. To administer the farm from a remote location, the console can be accessed as a published application. By connecting to the console through an ICA session or through RDP, the static and dynamic information is queried from the console locally, dramatically increasing the performance of the console. This is particularly useful in larger server farms.
Page 16

2.4

Web Interface configuration

Web Interface is an application deployment system that provides users with access to XenApp applications through a standard Web browser. The Web Interface employs Java and .NET technology executed on a Web server to dynamically create an HTML depiction of published applications for users. Users are presented with all the applications published in the server farm(s) that they are permitted to use. Web Interface enables centralized application management capabilities and complete control over the application deployment process. Standalone Web sites for application access can be created and integrated into the enterprises existing corporate portal. How many Web Interface servers are needed to support 30,000 users? For CSP Corporation, the Web Interface server is a 2.2 GHz Intel Xeon dual-processor computer with 2GB of RAM. As shown in Table 2, this server is able to handle 9.2 user requests per second. Platform Windows Server 2008 R2 / IIS7 Farm authority ADS User requests / second 9.2 User scalability 33,700 users / hour

Table 2 - Web Interface user scalability

In general, the number of users that a single Web Interface server can support is dependent on the processor speed rather than the number of processors in the system.

2.5

Worker Group configuration

The release of XenApp 6 adds powerful new features for XenApp administrators through integration with Active Directory (AD). All user and server settings can now be managed through AD policies, while published applications, hosted desktops, load balancing and farm multi-tenancy can be managed through a new container known as a worker group.

Page 17

Figure 12 illustrates how worker groups enable multi-tenancy in a XenApp farm.

Figure 12 - Worker groups and tenant silos

A worker group is a collection of XenApp servers in the same farm, where administrators can associate objects like published applications, published desktops, and policies. Worker groups allow a set of similar servers to be grouped together and managed as a single entity. Worker groups are closely related to the concept of application silos. However, they streamline the creation of application silos by providing a way to synchronize the published applications and server settings across a set of XenApp servers. Worker groups are dynamic. For example, when AD containers are associated with a worker group, changes in the AD container are automatically reflected in the server's worker group memberships. Servers can be added to worker groups by AD Organizational Units or Server Groups. This allows worker groups to be dynamically updated based on the servers AD memberships. That is, as servers are added or removed from the AD containers, they will be automatically added or removed from the respective worker groups. The CSP Corporation administrators have chosen to manage their XenApp farm through Active Directory. Figure 12 shows the Active Directory Organizational Unit (OU) structure for the XenApp farm.

Page 18

Figure 13 - Active Directory Organization Unit (OU)

In anticipation of future expansion, CSP Corporation administrators created two sets of worker groups: one set to group servers by tenant and one set to group applications by tenant. When the administrators add capacity for an existing tenant, they do not need to modify the servers list of published applications or desktops assigned to that tenant. Instead, they simply add another XenApp server to the tenants OU. Figure 14 illustrates CSP Corporations worker group structure in the DSC.

Page 19

Figure 14 - Worker group layout

With dynamic provisioning, this step can be automated using AD, by creating a base image for XenApp with all of the applications installed. To add capacity, simply create a new instance of the base image and add it to the desired tenant OU. The server receives its server settings from AD, joins the appropriate worker groups, and begins hosting published applications or desktops. Creating separate worker groups for desktops and applications gives CSP Corporation the flexibility to easily expand their tenant base. Worker Groups and Citrix policy filters All Citrix server policies can be filtered by worker groups, which allow CSP administrators to restrict GPOs to a specific set of servers in the farm. For policies configured in the Delivery Services Console, this is the only way to assign different settings to different groups of servers as all policies are replicated to all servers, completely independent of AD. Since CSP Corporation administrators have control over their XenApp OU, they use AD GPOs to manage the settings in the XenApp farm. For all user and site settings, they can link the GPO to the XenApp OUs without any filters. However, if they wish to deploy a setting specifically to Tenant1s servers or Tenant2s servers, they can add a Worker Group filter to the policy to limit it to the appropriate tenant.

Page 20

2.6

Citrix policy configuration

Figure 15 - AD Group Policy vs. XenApp Farm Policy

In XenApp 6, nearly all server, farm, and user settings are governed by Citrix group policies, which can be configured in three different ways: 1. Local Machine Policy (gpedit) 2. Active Directory Group Policy (gpmc) 3. XenApp Farm Group Policy (Policies node of the Citrix Delivery Services Console) Local Machine Policy can be used for managing small farms, but large farms will use either AD or the Delivery Services Console to manage settings across multiple servers. AD offers the most powerful solution for administrators and supports managing settings across multiple XenApp farms. Administrators create a Group Policy Object (GPO) containing the desired Citrix policy settings and link the GPO to the appropriate tenant OUs. However, for Citrix administrators who do not have control over their AD environment or whose organizations dont use AD for directory services, XenApp 6 provides farm-based group policies through the Policies node in the management console. Policies configured here are written to the XenApp data store and propagated to all servers in the farm. If multiple types of policies are created, the priority of policy enforcement (from low to high) is as follows o Local GPO o Farm GPO o Domain GPO Based on CSP Corporations multi-tenancy requirements, the only option is to utilize XenApps AD Group Policy option. The administrators create Citrix policies at different
Page 21

OU structure levels as displayed in Figure 16. In this case, the priority of policies enforcement is as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. Policy created at the Default Domain Policy Policy created at the top OU level Policy created at the middle level OU Policy created at lowest level OU

Figure 16 - Active Directory XenApp group policies

The XenApp General GPO was created to apply to the XenApp farm as a whole. For each tenant, the CSP administrator creates new or links existing GPOs to the tenants OU structure. For example, the Tenant1 GPO is a general tenant GPO that was created to apply policies to all of Tenant1s downstream OUs. The CTXRestrictedComputer GPO is linked to Tenant1s computer OU (Tenant1_Computers) and CTXRestrictedUser and XASession GPOs are linked to Tenant1s user OU. The resultant Citrix policies applied to Tenant1s computer and user OUs will be the merged settings from all four GPOs. If there is a conflict among the policy settings of these GPOs, the settings in the Computer and User GPOs have the highest priority and will overwrite the settings in the Tenant1 GPO, XenApp General GPO and Domain GPO.
Page 22

Policy refresh interval Understanding how configured policies are refreshed and applied to the XenApp server can help the Citrix administrator troubleshoot policy-related issues. When Citrix policies are managed from the AD domain group policy, the sequence of policy refresh and update is as follows: 1. A change is made in the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC). 2. Within 1 to 2 hours, member servers pull and apply updates. 3. Every 3 hours, AD replication occurs between domain controllers.

Figure 17 - Group Policy Management refresh interval (Active Directory)

Page 23

When Citrix policies are managed from the Delivery Service Console, the sequence of policy refresh and update is as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. A change is made in Delivery Service Console. A member server writes the policy change to the data store and updates its LHC. All farm servers pull policy information from the data store and update their LHCs. Within 1 to 2 hours, member servers apply updates to the registry.

Figure 18 - Group Policy Management refresh interval (DSC)

If needed, the IMA service can be restarted to refresh computer policies immediately. User policies are refreshed when users logon or reconnect.. The gpupdate /force command can be executed to force the policy synchronization and update.

Page 24

3.0 Scalability Results and Analysis

Farm scalability determines the number of XenApp servers that can perform successfully together in a given environment. Farm scalability is determined by components like load balancing, manageability of the server farm, and data store load. After the farm for CSP Corporation was designed and deployed, the farm was loaded with thousands of client sessions to exercise the infrastructure well above the service level agreements of the most demanding environments.

3.1

Farm environment 3.1.1 Network configuration

CSP Corporation currently has multiple, geographically diverse data centers with the capacity to support thousands of servers. For the purpose of this simulation a single data center was utilized to deploy the XenApp environment. Within the data center, the XenApp servers were segmented into tenants utilizing internally assigned VLANs. All traffic between the networks was routed through a Layer3 switch, taking advantage of access policies for individual tenant security.

3.1.2 Farm-wide IMA bandwidth consumption

Analysis of the IMA service communication in the XenApp farm helps CSP Corporation understand the bandwidth requirements needs. The following diagrams show the IMA communication bandwidth consumption in four typical scenarios: o o o o XenApp startup Farm in an idle state User launching a session Election of a data collector

Page 25

IMA Communication - XenApp Startup

Figure 19 - IMA bandwidth consumption XenApp Startup

When the XenApp servers startup, they must establish a connection to the data store to read all of the configuration information needed to initialize the IMA Service. Next, the servers check out a server license from the license server. This allows the XenApp servers to grant grace period licenses in the event the license server becomes unreachable. If the license server is unavailable at startup, as long as the XenApp server had been able to previously connect to it at least once, the server can still grant grace period licenses. Next, the servers that provide access to applications and desktops register with the data collector.

Page 26

IMA Communication Idle Farm

Figure 20 - IMA bandwidth consumption Idle Farm

After the XenApp server starts, the local host cache performs a consistency check every 30 minutes to ensure it is in sync with the data store, just in case it missed a directory change notification. If the data collector has not received an update from a member server within the last 60 seconds, it sends an IMAPing to ensure the server is still available. Also, every five minutes plus some randomized interval, the XenApp servers contact the license server to ensure it is still available.

Page 27

IMA Communication User Connection

Figure 21 - IMA bandwidth consumption user connection

In this case, a user wants to connect to an application or desktop using Citrix Receiver or Web Interface. The data collector performs the resolution and directs the client device to connect to the least loaded server. When the user connects, the XenApp server contacts the license server to check out a concurrent license on behalf of the user. Once the user is connected, several things have changed on the server. The number of sessions on the server has changed and the servers load has changed. The member server then updates the data collector with this information.

Page 28

IMA Communication data collector election

Figure 22 - IMA bandwidth consumption new data collector election

In the event that the data collector in Zone1 has a failure, the member servers recognize the server is offline by one of the many monitoring mechanisms and start the election process. When the new data collector is elected, all the member servers for the zone rebuild all of their dynamic tables with the new data collector. Although the original data collector went down, the user connection that was established in Figure 21is unaffected. Once the resolution process is complete, the data collector will only passively track the session.

Page 29

3.2

XenApp performance results 3.2.1 Data collector performance

During the simulation, 10,000 unique static users were connected to the farm, while other users were dynamically logging on and off at a rate of 1,300 users per minute. Figure 23 shows a snapshot of the data collectors application resolutions rate, an average of 22 resolutions per second.

Data Collector Application Resolutions/Second

Figure 23 - Data collector application resolution per second

At this rate, the data collector would be able to handle 30,000 user logons in less than 25 minutes while the CPU usage is only about 45%. If the logon rate is increased to consume 90% of the data collectors CPU, the farm would be able to log on 60,000 users in less than 25 minutes.

Page 30

Data Collector Failover Scenario

Figure 24 - Data collector failover performance

Figure 24shows the data collector failover performance while serving user application requests. It takes about 25 seconds for the failover to occur.

3.2.2 Data store performance

The data store is utilized primarily during a server join task and at IMA startup. The server join operation places the highest burden on the data store. To demonstrate data store performance capabilities, CPU time performance data is collected as 50 XenApp servers join the farm. Figure 25 shows the database server easily handles the request as it only takes about 30 seconds for 50 servers to join the farm.

Page 31

Fort Lauderdale Data Store CPU Utilization

Figure 25 - CPU utilization while 50 servers join the farm

3.3

Worker Groups
For XenApp 6, Citrix eLabs ran a variety to tests to ensure scalability and performance in large farms of up to 1,000 XenApp servers. The addition of worker groups did not add a significant performance overhead, even in complex environments. Some of the key metrics found during testing: Application publishing to worker groups and load balancing policies had no measurable impact on application enumeration or load balancing times. The number of worker groups had minimal impact on discovery times for the management console. Adding 200 worker groups increased discovery time by 2.5 seconds, while 500 worker groups increased the time by 4.2 seconds. Worker groups and their memberships are cached in memory for performance. This results in an 8 KB increase in memory consumption for every worker group in the farm.

3.4

Citrix farm policies and bandwidth

Citrix policies provide an efficient method of controlling connection, security and bandwidth settings of a XenApp-delivered application or desktop. Citrix policies can be configured through the Group Policy Management Editor in Windows or the Delivery Services Console
Page 32

(DSC) in XenApp. The following analysis was done in an effort to understand the network impact of policies to a user logon; bandwidth usage was compared against a varying number of policies and policy settings.
Policy Configuration No Policies 1 Policy / 5 Settings 1 Policy / 10 Settings 2 Policies / 5 Settings 2 Policies / 10 Settings 5 Policies / 10 Settings Bandwidth (KB) 127 (Baseline) 158 147 161 154 193 Incremental bandwidth over baseline (KB) NA 31 20 34 27 66

Table 3 - User bandwidth consumption with Citrix policies

Table 3compares the bandwidth consumption of a single user logon with Citrix policies enabled and settings configured, and a single user logon with no polices enabled. Based on this data, additional policies and settings associated with a user add a small amount of bandwidth to each logon. Also, policy settings that are unchanged from their defaults are not transferred over the wire.

Policy best practices

Assign policies to groups rather than individual users. If you assign policies to groups, assignments are updated automatically when you add or remove users from the group. Do not enable conflicting or overlapping settings in Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration. In some cases, Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration provides similar functionality to Citrix policy settings. When possible, keep all settings consistent (enabled or disabled) for ease of troubleshooting. Disable unused policies. Policies with no settings added create unnecessary processing.

Page 33

4.0 Conclusion
Companies of all sizes are looking for a smarter approach to managing the applications and data they use to run their business. More devices, more applications, and more places to work means business owners have to spend an increasing amount of time on IT. Citrix Service Providers can shift the focus for their subscribers back to where it matters the mostgrowing the business. By offering a bundle of applications, desktops, and IT services, customers get what they want in a familiar, pay-as-you-go subscription model. XenApp can scale to meet the most demanding and complex business environments. With core architectural improvements made to XenApp from release to release, XenApp 6 is the most scalable, high-performing release to date. XenApp provides the foundation for aggregating over 1,000 servers or tenants into a single management scope, ultimately providing a solution that enables service providers to build a flexible, scalable, and cost effective architecture to meet their customers needs.

Page 34

About Citrix Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the leading provider of virtualization, networking and software as a service technologies for more than 230,000 organizations worldwide. Its Citrix Delivery Center, Citrix Cloud Center (C3) and Citrix Online Services product families radically simplify computing for millions of users, delivering applications as an on-demand service to any user, in any location on any device. Citrix customers include the worlds largest Internet companies, 99 percent of Fortune Global 500 enterprises, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers worldwide. Citrix partners with over 10,000 companies worldwide in more than 100 countries. Founded in 1989, annual revenue in 2008 was $1.6 billion.

2011 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix, Access Gateway, Branch Repeater, Citrix Repeater, HDX, XenServer, XenApp, XenDesktop and Citrix Delivery Center are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Page 35