[AccessD] Citrix

Joseph O'Connell joconnell at indy.rr.com
Wed Feb 19 13:02:00 CST 2003


Judy,

I have over 300 users (limit of 30 simultaneous users) that use an Access
2000 application on Citrix.  All users are remote and use an internet
connection.  There are no problems, but response time is noticablly slower
when there are more than 25 concurrent users.  Adding memory should resolve
that issue.

Is the database in each office independent of the database in the other
offices (except for the one aggregate)?  If they are, then why would you
want to consolidate the processing on a central server?

Joe O'Connell
joconnell at indy.rr.com

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Judy Johnson <jjwrite at earthlink.net>
    To: AccessD <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
    Date: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 12:40 PM
    Subject: [AccessD] Citrix



    Hi Group - I sent this same request out last February as the issue to
use Citrix came up at that time. The client decided it was not a viable
solution.

    New players, getting ready to roll out Office XP, they now want to look
at Citrix as a solution again. Could I have your thoughts?
    This is our situation:
        a.. 6 offices within the continental US.
        b.. 40-50 users. Each office has their own local NT server. Users
are not evenly distributed (some offices have 2, others have a dozen). We
also have about 6 users who work from their homes, most using dial-up.
        c.. There are two areas within the organization, each has their own
application. The "applications" are currently running in A97. I've converted
a test copy to XP and they work fine - no reprogramming was necessary. The
FEs reside on the user's PC. They are used for data entry and reporting.
(The last FE update was in October 2002 - very low maintenance FE). The data
is located in an mdb on each local server. All servers are linked through
NT. One location requires access to all files so a program was written to
create an Aggregate copy of all data for reporting purposes. The "Aggregate
download" is performed on a monthly basis for Aggregate reporting only.
        d.. The users also commonly cut & paste from a web based reference
manual into a comments field within the data entry form.
    The company is anticipating a 2 year window for roll out of XP and are
concerned about having 2 versions of the FE (A97 and XP). My recommendations
is to leave the data mdb in A97 until everyone has XP, then we'd convert the
data. I've tested data entry from XP to the A97 and it works fine. Frankly,
I don't see how the benefit of Citrix can possibly outweigh it's cost. Does
anyone "see" something I may be missing?

    Am I correct in understanding that a dedicated server is required? I'm
being told no fail over is required. I believe that means all of  my users
will be on the same server, with their FE sitting on the server. If the
server goes down - everyone will be down. But my bigger concern is response
time! We're talking 30-40 concurrent Access users doing data entry and major
report generation. Does anyone have any idea how I can realistically test
this scenario? The IT folks are offering a test environment next week.
Thanks for your input.

    Judy Johnson
    jjwrite at earthlink.net





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