| During the Server Design you will be required to define the number, type of hardware and software required to achieve the project vision. You will be required to document the system requirements of each component of the MetaFrame Access Suite The Server Design section consists of the following sections: Hardware Recommendations Software Requirements The following is an example of a Server Design Overview: | 2. Server Design The Server Design defines the number of type of server, hardware, memory, processors required along with their associated operating systems, the MetaFrame Access Suite products required and any additional software required. The Server Design consists of the following sections: Hardware Recommendations Software Requirements |
In the hardware recommendations section of the Design phase you will be required to document the hardware requirements needed to achieve the project vision. You will want to define the hardware needed for each component of the Access Suite. The question that is asked for every project is What kind and/or how many MetaFrame XP or MetaFrame Secure Access Manager servers do I need? This is a touchy subject and it all depends on a number of factors; applications being published, number of users, hardware used and many more. It is not the purpose of this document to examine cost analysis and scalability testing, For the most part, a customer in a small sized rollout will probably not want to incur the associated expense. However, it is important to make a determination from the information we have gathered and our experience in past installations. All MetaFrame Access Suite environments are different and based on the data you collected from the Proof of Concept and prior deployment experiences; you should be able to give your recommendations on the server hardware required to achieve the project vision. Also note that this section might need to be amended as the project moves forward. The following are a few rules of thumb anything more would be like shooting arrows in the dark. MetaFrame XP with Feature Release 3 What type of and how many processors do I need? There are numerous processors to choose from in deciding what server hardware to purchase. A minimum of a single Pentium is required, but I recommend two Pentium 4 processors with Hyper Threading capabilities. Xeon processors are also now cost-effective and add additional users per box, in most cases. How much memory per server? From my experiences, I recommend 1GB RAM per CPU. This gives you the best bang for your buck and is ultimately more cost effective in the long run. How many servers do I need? This all depends on how many users and applications you will be supporting, the amount of RAM each application requires, the type of applications you are running and how heavy the end users utilize the applications and numerous other factors. What I have always recommended is as follows: A MetaFrame XP server is a presentation server tasked with publishing applications, only data that needs to reside on it should be the applications executables. With this in mind, I believe in scaling out vs. scaling up and having N+1 instead of RAID controllers and redundant fans and power supplies. The money you save is best spent on an additional server for load balancing purposes. In other words if you have 40 concurrent users on two boxes and one drops off, you would want to make sure that the other server would be able to handle the additional 20 users load. If the remaining server(s) cannot hold the load then you will need to add another server to the farm. This guarantees your customer high availability. N+1 solves this perception issue. At a minimum I recommend MetaFrame XPa running on a minimum of two servers.
MetaFrame Secure Access Manager 2.0 What type of and how many processors do I need? There are numerous processors to choose from in deciding what server hardware to purchase. A minimum of a single Pentium is required, but I recommend a dual Pentium III or IV processor boxes for maximum performance in a cost effective manner. I also highly recommend machines with Hyper Threading capabilities. How much memory server? From my experiences, I recommend a minimum of 2GB RAM per CPU. How many servers do I need? This all depends on how many users, applications and content there will be. What I recommended is as follows: A MetaFrame Secure Access server in its simplest form consists of three services, web extensions, agent service, and state / config service. The Agent server is the box that ends up doing the most processing. This tends to become very CPU intensive thus I recommend a dual processor machine. The rule of thumb Ive lived by is an Agent server can handle around 250 users so if you are deploying in a small environment with typical user content you should be able to get away with having one MetaFrame Secure Access Manager server. As you experience slowness you will be required to add additional Agent servers. Do make sure you set this expectation with the customer. Do note that the first server installed in a MetaFrame Secure Access Manager farm becomes the State server and this service cannot be installed on multiple servers. You can however cluster them for redundancy. To keep with the scope of a small to medium size deployment you would be required to weigh the need and cost of improved up-time against a cloning or image style disaster recovery solution. At a minimum I recommend one MetaFrame Secure Access Manager 2.0 server with the expectation that if the MetaFrame Secure Access Manager farm slows an additional Agent server will be added. I also recommend you have the high availability discussion with the customer, detailing the choices for disaster recovery of the State server and web server. Secure Gateway for MetaFrame 2.0 and Web Interface What type of and how many processors do I need? There are numerous processors to choose from in deciding what server hardware to purchase. A minimum of a single Pentium is required, and with the system requirements being as low as they are I recommend a typical 1GHz server, Intel Pentium III or IV processors for maximum performance in a cost effective manner. How much memory and processors per server? The recommended memory requirements are around 1GB per server. If you will only be supporting a small amount of users (less than 50), I would imagine you could get away with 512MB but the more the better off you are. How many servers do I need? With the release of Secure Gateway for MetaFrame 2.0 You are now able to deploy the Secure Gateway service and Web Interface on the same box. With this knowledge and the fact that Secure Gateway can perform 20 logons per second and upwards of 1000 concurrent connections on a 1GHz server you will see that a one box, single point of failure, solution is more than acceptable. I do however recommend two servers to run the MetaFrame Secure Gateway for MetaFrame and Web Interface. Both servers will be identical and load balanced for a fault tolerance solution. The following is an example of Hardware Requirements: | 2. 1 Hardware Recommendations In keeping with the vision of achieving high availability while achieving a very high user perception of performance and stability, D&D Consulting recommends the following hardware to be purchased for each component in the Access Suite. D & D Consulting recommends the use of dual Pentium Zeon processor server class machine with 2GB ram for all MetaFrame XP servers. D & D Consulting recommends the use of a SCSI drive subsystem, a minimum of two spindles. D & D Consulting recommends the use of single 1GHZ processor server class hardware with 1GB RAM for Secure Gateway for MetaFrame and Web Interface Server. D & D Consulting recommends the use of one dual processor server class machine with 4GB ram for the MetaFrame Secure Access Manager server. | Note: Citrix does not recommend any particular hardware vendor or software venders. This would be driven by the customers preference and or corporate standard.
In the Operating System recommendations section of the Design phase, you will be required to document the software required to achieve the project vision. You will want to define the Operating Systems required, (NT 4.0 TSE, Windows 2000 and or Windows Server 2003), MetaFrame products and versions and any additional software required to achieve the vision. For example, if you know you have an application that tends to monopolize the CPU you can overcome this potential issue though a software package like RTOSofts TScale 3.0. TScale 3.0 also cuts down on Windows paging and memory usage in return allowing more end-users per box while leaving all end-users with a better perception of performance. The following is an example of the Operating System Requirements: | 2. 2 Software Requirements In keeping with the vision of achieving high availability while achieving a very high user perception of performance and stability, D&D Consulting, recommends the following Operating Systems for each component in the Access Suite. D & D Consulting recommends the use of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 on all MetaFrame XP servers. D & D Consulting recommends the use of Microsoft Windows 2000 on the Secure Gateway for MetaFrame and Web Interface Server. D & D Consulting recommends the use of Microsoft Windows 2000 on the MetaFrame Secure Access Manager server(s) One Microsoft Terminal Services Client Access License and one Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Server License is required for every end-user who will access the MetaFrame XP servers. The Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite will need to be purchased in order to deploy all the components of the Access Suite, MetaFrame XP Presentation Server, MetaFrame Conferencing Manager, MetaFrame Secure Access Manager, MetaFrame Password Manager. Thirty concurrent MetaFrame Access Suite license will be purchased to support a maximum concurrent usage of twenty seven end-users. One copy of Microsoft Office XP will need to be purchased in order to deploy the required components, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Access on every MetaFrame XP servers. One Microsoft Office XP Client Access License will need to be purchased for every end-user that will access the Microsoft Office XP suite of products. One copy of RTO Software TScale 3.0, per server, will need to be purchased to reduce Windows paging and guarantee server degradation from rouge applications monopolizing a CPU on a MetaFrame XP server. | Note: Citrix does not recommend any particular hardware vendor or software venders. This would be driven by the customers preference and or corporate standard. |