Pro and Con of setting up cluster Terminal servers

[Guest Roget Luo]

We have 3 Windows 2003 std terminal servers and splitting up roughly 120

users. It's quite a pain to make sure we are no overloading on one vs

another as well as relocating users whenever a TS goes down. Wondering if

it's a good idea to upgrade them to Enterprise edt and change to a cluster

setup. Any pros and cons in such setup? And if someone can point me to

some helpful articles would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Guest Thomas Eg Jørgensen]

Re: Pro and Con of setting up cluster Terminal servers

 

"Roget Luo" <roget168@hotmail.com> skrev i en meddelelse

news:%23aDv3QslIHA.3780@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

> We have 3 Windows 2003 std terminal servers and splitting up roughly

> 120 users. It's quite a pain to make sure we are no overloading on

> one vs another as well as relocating users whenever a TS goes down.

> Wondering if it's a good idea to upgrade them to Enterprise edt and

> change to a cluster setup. Any pros and cons in such setup? And if

> someone can point me to some helpful articles would be greatly

> appreciated.

>

 

2c's from me:

 

Clustering can be quite expensive in hardware(and hosting fees?) and it

will not solve your load-balancing problems...Clustering will only work

as a failover in case one of your servers crash...

 

We had the same problems: Loadbalancing and

disaster-recovery-considerations...

 

We solved it otherwise: Loadbalancing was solved by a semi-automatic

VBScript which can move an user from one server to another. The script

was then integrated in our CRM-system so our administrators can monitor

the load and the move some users from one server to another by a simple

mouseclick...

 

We have also implemented(and tested;-)) a solution for a "total

disaster"-scenario: An extra server on standby at all times. Combined

with the script from our loadbalancing-solution this enables us to move

all users "away" from a crashed server in a matter of minutes. This has

the cost of N+1 servers compared to a clustered solution at N*2

servers...

 

It depends on how much you are willing to pay for your solution?

 

PS: we did also look at http://www.2x.com for loadbalancing, but this could not

work in our particular enviroment:-( That was why we used the

semi-automatic loadbalancing instead, but maybe it can help you?

 

/Thomas

[Guest Frankster]

Re: Pro and Con of setting up cluster Terminal servers

 

 

"Roget Luo" <roget168@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:%23aDv3QslIHA.3780@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

> We have 3 Windows 2003 std terminal servers and splitting up roughly 120

> users. It's quite a pain to make sure we are no overloading on one vs

> another as well as relocating users whenever a TS goes down. Wondering if

> it's a good idea to upgrade them to Enterprise edt and change to a cluster

> setup. Any pros and cons in such setup? And if someone can point me to

> some helpful articles would be greatly appreciated.

>

> Thanks in advance.

>

 

You want Citrix. Citrix has a phenominal Load Balancing capability without

needing clustering or any other special TS configuration.

 

In my mind, there are two primary reasons to use Citrix. One is for

cross-platform capability and the other is for Load Balancing.

 

As a side benefit, Citrix also allows more find-grained configuration

contributing to potentially greater security, if that matters to you.

 

-Frank

[Guest Mike K]

Re: Pro and Con of setting up cluster Terminal servers

 

I've found that NLB across 3 identical machines works very well - especially

with session manager. You'll need 2003 Enterprise for this though. However,

I believe (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that there is a new

system called session broker that runs on 2008 standard.

Mike

 

"Frankster" wrote:

>

> "Roget Luo" <roget168@hotmail.com> wrote in message

> news:%23aDv3QslIHA.3780@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

> > We have 3 Windows 2003 std terminal servers and splitting up roughly 120

> > users. It's quite a pain to make sure we are no overloading on one vs

> > another as well as relocating users whenever a TS goes down. Wondering if

> > it's a good idea to upgrade them to Enterprise edt and change to a cluster

> > setup. Any pros and cons in such setup? And if someone can point me to

> > some helpful articles would be greatly appreciated.

> >

> > Thanks in advance.

> >

>

> You want Citrix. Citrix has a phenominal Load Balancing capability without

> needing clustering or any other special TS configuration.

>

> In my mind, there are two primary reasons to use Citrix. One is for

> cross-platform capability and the other is for Load Balancing.

>

> As a side benefit, Citrix also allows more find-grained configuration

> contributing to potentially greater security, if that matters to you.

>

> -Frank

>

>