Deploying an application anonymously that has memory requirements of 250-300 mb per user using HP Blades with 16 gb RAM. With that amount of RAM how big should my PageFile be sized for, and should it be broken up into multiple smaller files or one large file?
I will be running on Win2003 Enterprise 32-bit (app not supported on 64 by vendor) and this is my first venture into TS/CitrixXenapp with RAM >4gb. Are there any other tweaks I should look at performing? (I typically use Doug Brown's stuff for tuning).
Thanks!
Windows uses physical RAM as some sort of cache and leverages the page file a lot. While it is partly true that systems with a large amount of RAM can be configured with a small page file, I don't recommend that for Terminal Services if you intend to host a large number of sessions. Make the page file 1.5 times the installed RAM as recommended. You will be able to host a large number of users that way without any performance degradation in the XenApp servers. I have deployed hundreds and hundreds of servers with this configuration (32-bit) and I have never had an issue with performance even with 120+ sessions running on each server with hundreds and hundreds of users running on such servers that would complain in a heartbeat if there were any issues. I have been doing this for years so it is a proven system. You should store the page file in a different physical disk. If you have more than one physical disk for the page file, you should split the page file across those independent disks.
As far as tweaks, for systems with this configuration, you need to install this Microsoft hotfix
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970054/en-us
and possibly this hotfix as well (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936655). I have had to use it a few times to resolve the very same issue described. I would also recommend this hotfix if you expect to have a lot of auto-created printers
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953546
You will also need this tweak
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/312362
and this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935649. Also, don't forget to install the User Profile Hive Cleanup service. Also, you will need this hotfix http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324446. Make sure the hardware cache is enabled for the storage controller and the battery is fully charged.
On many systems with large memory and a large number of users, I have also had to install the following hotfix to fix the described issue
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937375
I have many more tweaks that I have found very helpful through experimenting through the years and working with almost 100 different environments running XenApp on Windows 2003. I have integrated all of them into a registry file. If you are interested contact me and I will send you the file.
Note: Don't forget to keep the HP blades with latest firmware and drivers.