Possible WAAS for remote Citrix connections

[msrohman]

Hi all,

Our company is starting centralize applications in a data-center in Chicago, IL. One of them includes an application that utilizes Citrix as well as Windows file copying.

The branch sites rely this data-center for applications and file services.

One of the branch sites is located in LA, California. Our company uses MPLS as WAN connectivity. The Chicago site has a 45mbps DS3 into the MPLS WAN and LA has a 9mb into it. The round-trip latency is about 68 ms. Average bandwidth utilization is about 15% for each site.

We've begun user testing in LA and noticed some unsatifactory Citrix login times and Windows file copies from the servers in the midwest. It looks as if the WAN bandwidth isn't getting completely utilized during the tcp connections for these activities.

The server group is looking at optimizing TCP on the systems. The network engineer (me) is validating WAN circuits and bandwidth allocation.

Is WAAS something to consider in this scenario?

I've read Citrix/Cisco white-papers . It seems to match our scenario. We are a finanical company.

Thanks for your help

Mike

[ebreniz]

My experience has been, if your Citrix traffic shares the media with other traffic, enough so that any congestion forms, QoS is a must to insure the best possible performance.

Do not design QoS on paper, implement the network in the simplest manner first, and monitor it for a while.

Check that traffic volumes and patterns are the ones that you have dimensioned the circuits for.

Check that you can make huge copies across, do voip, whatever else without disturbing the core business.

Check that there are no errors anywhere, redundancy is working as expected, and most important, everyone is happy.

Also secure it as necessary.

Measure, with netflow, span port or whatever you like, traffic volumes per application, that will be your baseline for eventual QoS configuration.