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Bandwidth Usage per session Citrix XenApp XenDesktop
Can someone please provide some accurate guidelines in terms of scoping bandwidth requirements for a WAN connection for 30 users for delivering a full hosted desktop from XenApp or XenDesktop.
We used to work on around 25k per session for ICA traffic however with the increased use of multimedia and graphics content, flash content, universal print driver, ica drive redirection, hdx plug & play, hdx real-time and other new features recently developed by Citrix I get the feeling that considerably more bandwidth needs to be allocated per user session.
I have searched on a number of forums and Citrix's knowledge base etc and cannot see any current statistics on this topic. Citrix continuously mentions bandwidth reductions but I cannot seem to find any data on scoping bandwidth requirements with all the features I mentioned above enabled to give each user a true desktop pc experience.
We used to work on around 25k per session for ICA traffic however with the increased use of multimedia and graphics content, flash content, universal print driver, ica drive redirection, hdx plug & play, hdx real-time and other new features recently developed by Citrix I get the feeling that considerably more bandwidth needs to be allocated per user session.
I have searched on a number of forums and Citrix's knowledge base etc and cannot see any current statistics on this topic. Citrix continuously mentions bandwidth reductions but I cannot seem to find any data on scoping bandwidth requirements with all the features I mentioned above enabled to give each user a true desktop pc experience.
Microsoft Server OSCitrixNetworking
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Carl Webster
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In my Citrix training we were told that the general rule of thumb was 80k/session
ASKER
Thanks Carl,
Those slide decks were very helpfull in terms of designing an bandwidth friendly Citrix farm.
What do you use as a rough rule of thumb for a user who has access to a hosted/published desktop and will want to use universal print driver, hdx & view large amount of graphical content like pdf's with images, and powerpoint slides with images.
Those slide decks were very helpfull in terms of designing an bandwidth friendly Citrix farm.
What do you use as a rough rule of thumb for a user who has access to a hosted/published desktop and will want to use universal print driver, hdx & view large amount of graphical content like pdf's with images, and powerpoint slides with images.
ASKER
Thanks dunnoh,
How long ago was this training and did it relate to the current versions of XenApp & XenDesktop with HDX enabled?
How long ago was this training and did it relate to the current versions of XenApp & XenDesktop with HDX enabled?
My training was for Presentation Server 4.5 so it's dating a little, but that rule wasn't for the kind of usage you are talking about. You should also ask yourself at what percentage of the time will you have 30 users using high-demand software with video or images constantly hitting on your network.
If you want more than an approximation, I would recommand using perf counters with a test server and only one session opened, using the max they will be using and see how much bandwidth it's taking.
Then look at the qty of users you think will be on at the same time and establish your minimum bandwidth. Keep in mind you can turn on image caching to help.
One last thing, you have not mentionned it but you might think about using a WAN accelerator since they're pretty popular these days. ICA is already compressed so the WAN accelerator would not optimize its traffic.
Hope this helps..
If you want more than an approximation, I would recommand using perf counters with a test server and only one session opened, using the max they will be using and see how much bandwidth it's taking.
Then look at the qty of users you think will be on at the same time and establish your minimum bandwidth. Keep in mind you can turn on image caching to help.
One last thing, you have not mentionned it but you might think about using a WAN accelerator since they're pretty popular these days. ICA is already compressed so the WAN accelerator would not optimize its traffic.
Hope this helps..
The Citrix WAN accelerator WILL optimize ICA traffic since it knows the internals of the protocol and will do a great job.
The ONLY way to know for certail how to estimate bandwidth usage is to configure your farm, citrix policies, group policies, etc etc etc the way you want them and then test and measure. Then analyze, retest, remeasure and reanalyze until you have YOUR optimum solution. Then what works for you, your users, your environment and your applications will not work for anyone else. That is why the standard Citrix answer is "It Depends" (as you saw on the slide decks).
The ONLY way to know for certail how to estimate bandwidth usage is to configure your farm, citrix policies, group policies, etc etc etc the way you want them and then test and measure. Then analyze, retest, remeasure and reanalyze until you have YOUR optimum solution. Then what works for you, your users, your environment and your applications will not work for anyone else. That is why the standard Citrix answer is "It Depends" (as you saw on the slide decks).
Oh I wasn't talking about the Citrix WAN accelerator just WAN accelerators in general.
I actually didn't even know there was a Citrix WAN accelerator thanks!
I actually didn't even know there was a Citrix WAN accelerator thanks!
Yep, now called Branch Repeater originally was called WANScaler. But Citrix LOVES to rename products.
In the Policies Section of XenApp you can limit the overall session but also limit bandwidth for certain peripherals
Presentation Server Console -> Policies
Here you can limit the bandwidth used per session by Audio, Printing, Com Ports, Drives...etc but also the overall session.
depending on your printer requirements is well it may be an idea to remove all mapping of printers and just map the default printer or send the print job directly to a print server
Also you may also want to look at SpeedScreen in the Farm settings and also in Policies to compress graphics.
Hope this helps