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Remote desktop sessions freezes
Posted on 2013-06-02
Hi There,
I have quite a mysterious issue that troubles all our staff and customers as one.
We have a server cabinet with the following equipments:
2 x Dell r710, each with 286GB RAM and connect via HBA to Brocade switch.
Cisco Catalyst Network switch 2960G
Fortinet Forgtigate 310B
2 x BROCADE DS-6505R-B
EMC VNX5300
In the beginning we have installed Win2008R2Sp1 with Hyper-V role on both hosts.
Shortly after we started hosting customers on both servers we started getting complaints about freezing and disconnection of remote sessions on the Win2008R2 guests.
We tried almost anything:
1. Firmware was upgraded on the hosts for everything.
2. Drivers were updated for everything.
3. Load-balancing was set to try and reduce the load on the NICs.
4. The NICs are Broadcom so we have changed all off-loading settings that we saw.
5. We installed new NICs from Intel and moved the customers traffic to the new NICs.
6. Last step was to remove one host and install ESXi 4.1 on it and move few VMs to it.
Even on ESXi, the customers suffered from freezes during working time.
To eliminate the possibility that there is something on the guests, we moved few customers to another hosting company and see if the same problems will be there as well, surprisingly, everything worked like a charm there.
So the main question is does anyone here ever faced such issue and can shed some light?
We are practically clueless and our customers already started leaving us.
Thanks ahead.
I have quite a mysterious issue that troubles all our staff and customers as one.
We have a server cabinet with the following equipments:
2 x Dell r710, each with 286GB RAM and connect via HBA to Brocade switch.
Cisco Catalyst Network switch 2960G
Fortinet Forgtigate 310B
2 x BROCADE DS-6505R-B
EMC VNX5300
In the beginning we have installed Win2008R2Sp1 with Hyper-V role on both hosts.
Shortly after we started hosting customers on both servers we started getting complaints about freezing and disconnection of remote sessions on the Win2008R2 guests.
We tried almost anything:
1. Firmware was upgraded on the hosts for everything.
2. Drivers were updated for everything.
3. Load-balancing was set to try and reduce the load on the NICs.
4. The NICs are Broadcom so we have changed all off-loading settings that we saw.
5. We installed new NICs from Intel and moved the customers traffic to the new NICs.
6. Last step was to remove one host and install ESXi 4.1 on it and move few VMs to it.
Even on ESXi, the customers suffered from freezes during working time.
To eliminate the possibility that there is something on the guests, we moved few customers to another hosting company and see if the same problems will be there as well, surprisingly, everything worked like a charm there.
So the main question is does anyone here ever faced such issue and can shed some light?
We are practically clueless and our customers already started leaving us.
Thanks ahead.
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8 Comments
OK.. W2008 is the host you are trying to connect to.. What is the source connection from? W2007, XP, Vista? For example, under XP there was an MSKB Patch update for MSTSC that I believe addresses these types of issues..
HTH,
Kent
HTH,
Kent
Hi Kent,
The clients that having this behavior are connecting from XP, Win7 and also Win8.
This was one of the things that we eliminated at the beginning.
Also since the customers didn't suffered from this behavior on the other hosting company, it also eliminated the client side, otherwise same issues will be there as well.
Thanks for your comment,
Tomer
The clients that having this behavior are connecting from XP, Win7 and also Win8.
This was one of the things that we eliminated at the beginning.
Also since the customers didn't suffered from this behavior on the other hosting company, it also eliminated the client side, otherwise same issues will be there as well.
Thanks for your comment,
Tomer
I would check the ISP bandwidth. It looks like everything else is upgraded high enough to handle the traffic.
Also check the drives. I'm assuming they are 10k or 15k drives and are on the Perc card.
Also check the drives. I'm assuming they are 10k or 15k drives and are on the Perc card.
Can it be the Perc although the VM's are stored on the EMC?
We have 30MB line on the ISP, if we were on the previous configuration when all the VM's were hosted on my servers I would consider it as an option, but now 90% of the VM's are not hosted on my servers and the 10% are still suffering from the same issue.
The down speed is 11MB\s and UP speed is 26MB\s.
No torrents are allowed here, so I don't see how RDS can overload such bandwidth.
We have 30MB line on the ISP, if we were on the previous configuration when all the VM's were hosted on my servers I would consider it as an option, but now 90% of the VM's are not hosted on my servers and the 10% are still suffering from the same issue.
The down speed is 11MB\s and UP speed is 26MB\s.
No torrents are allowed here, so I don't see how RDS can overload such bandwidth.
I would try running a bandwidth test from www.speedtest.net as soon as the problem is reported. You might have temporary ISP problems. I've seen this with Comcast. Who is your ISP?
Monitor usage of systems (CPU, disk queues / latency).
Check your switch logs for any indications of network issues / overloading.
If you have a network monitoring solution, monitor port utilisation on the switch data ports and CPU / ram usage.
Use a service such as www.site24x7 to externally monitor latency (as advised by TG-TIS above).
Review the following article about tcp offloading.
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH197934
Check your switch logs for any indications of network issues / overloading.
If you have a network monitoring solution, monitor port utilisation on the switch data ports and CPU / ram usage.
Use a service such as www.site24x7 to externally monitor latency (as advised by TG-TIS above).
Review the following article about tcp offloading.
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH197934
I'm honestly not sure if you have a bandwidth issue or a server performance issue but you need to remember that unless you have a point to point circuit with guaranteed throughput the amount of bandwidth you're paying for is irrelevant if one of the circuits between the host and client is overloaded.
you may want to do some trace routes between the problem clients and your servers. if there are network segments in common on clients with problems and not on clients without then you may have discovered your problem.
you may want to do some trace routes between the problem clients and your servers. if there are network segments in common on clients with problems and not on clients without then you may have discovered your problem.
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