The MUSC Citrix environment is a collection of servers grouped into what is referred to as a "Farm". Each member server in the farm has an identical server configuration, making it possible to create a load balancing scenario of applications that are installed on the Citrix server. So, if I have an application that I want published, oh... let's say "Practice Partner". I will install the Practice Partner application on 2 or more Citrix servers, and through the management interface, I will configure the "published application" to be delivered across those 2 servers. Should a server go down, those other member servers will cover the presense of the app until such a time as that server is made available again.
When I launch the application, Citrix creates a virtual workspace on the Citrix application server, which is based on available CPU, RAM, HDD and Network resources. Once those resources are in place, the application will launch in that virtual environment. So it is important for us to take note of how many resources are utilized on startup, operation, idle and shutdown, when we publish a Citrix application. We take the numbers of all of these resources, and multiply that times the number of sessions that we want to run, and that gives us a general idea of how much RAM, CPU, Disck and NIC we need to carry the load.
Why is it advantageous to deploy apps through Citrix?
Citrix is an application delivery system that allows most Windows applications to be run virtually, as if it were running on your own workstation. Your computer's keyboard, mouse and monitor are used for interacting with the program, but the actual processing happens on a different computer.
There are several advantages to running certain systems via a Citrix interface:
- It eliminates the need to install and manage large, complex applications on each desktop.
- It ensures that all users are using the same version of a Windows program with the same hardware configuration. (No "DLL" or "Extension" conflicts).
- It allows non-Microsoft users to use programs that will only run under Windows without requiring a second computer or Virtual PC.
The MUSC Citrix environment is a collection of servers, which hosts these published applications. Because each application is installed on multiple servers, the system has a built in redundancy, therefore inproving uptime and system reliability. Citrix greatly improves our ability to maintain a 99.999% uptime!
