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<DIV><SPAN class=209333917-19022003><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Judy,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=209333917-19022003><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=209333917-19022003><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>I have
never used Citrix, however I do use Terminal Server remote access which is a
similar concept. I use this to remote in to the client's machine. I
can tell you it works very well for me, but I also have a very high speed
internet connection - the fastest I have ever seen anywhere. Another user
is complaining that it is slow - this over a DSL line.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=209333917-19022003><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=209333917-19022003><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>This
is a very small client. 4 workstations at the office and a maximum of 4
connections back in from remote locations. In fact not even that since
they are using the built in Terminal Server software that comes with Win2K which
only allows two simultaneous connections without purchasing additional
licenses.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=209333917-19022003><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>What I
think I know generically is that any remote access solution like this sets up a
virtual machine, which means that all application software is loaded once per
user. IOW, if the user logs in and loads word, a browser and Access, then
the server now has three applications running in addition to it's normal
load. If another user logs in and loads Word, a browser and Access, three
more applications load for that user. Because of this, you need to set
aside enough memory on average for each user to load whatever they need to
load. In our above scenario, IE takes ~24 mb, Access ~32-48 mb (depending
on database size), and Word takes ~16 mb or so. These numbers are rough
estimates and others will jump in I am sure with better numbers. Thus this
user would need 24 + 28 + 16 mb plus no doubt some additional overhead, so
roughly 68 mb for that one user.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=209333917-19022003><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=209333917-19022003><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>As you
can see this isn't an exact science unless you can dictate exactly what apps
they can run remotely.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=209333917-19022003><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=209333917-19022003><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>If you
just "decided" to set aside 128 mb / user, you could fit 8 users / gb of
ram. There are going to be a slew of other issues. For example if
these users are pounding the system hard, you have to have sufficient bandwidth
between the server and the internet to handle all the screen shots being thrown
out etc. The server itself will need to be a big / fast machine, or a
bunch of big / fast machines.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=209333917-19022003><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Keep
us informed if this actually happens. I'd love to see the numbers and know
how it "feels" to the users.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<P><FONT size=2>John W. Colby<BR>Colby
Consulting<BR>www.ColbyConsulting.com</FONT> </P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B>
accessd-admin@databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-admin@databaseadvisors.com]<B>On Behalf Of </B>Judy
Johnson<BR><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, February 19, 2003 12:39 PM<BR><B>To:</B>
AccessD<BR><B>Subject:</B> [AccessD] Citrix<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<P>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>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.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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?</DIV>
<DIV>This is our situation:</DIV>
<UL>
<LI>6 offices within the continental US.
<LI>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.
<LI>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.
<LI>The users also commonly cut & paste from a web based reference
manual into a comments field within the data entry form.</LI></UL>
<DIV>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?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Judy Johnson</DIV>
<DIV><A
href="mailto:jjwrite@earthlink.net">jjwrite@earthlink.net</A></DIV></DIV>
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