CNC Question

[samuel]

Hi Listers,

I need you guys help on this. I'm not a CNC person but my company has asked me to get information on this, hence I need your help!

We are planning to go live for 7 subsidiaries in one shot, with two possibly running WebClient. We are expecting around 300 users with 80+ users possibly running WebClient(at another place).

This is our current configuration:

JDEC (JDE Server)
HP Cluster PIII 700 Dual XEON Processor
3.2GB RAM
130GB HDD (RAID 5)
- 60GB Database (26GB Free Space)
- 45GB Application (17GB Free Space)
Windows NT 4.0 SP6a
SQL 7.0 SP4

HPNT1 (Deployment Server)
HP PIII 700 Dual Processor
654MB RAM
68GB HDD
WIN NT 4.0 SP6a
SQL 7.0 SP4

Intranet Line 100mbps (linking 5 companies)
Leased Line 64kbps (linking another 2 companies at another place)

Currently we are running 1 company and we need the other 7 to go live.

Five companies with around 200 users will be linked through the 100mbps line. We would want to know the projected impact on our servers and what we need to do/prepare to cater for the extra load.

Out of the 7 companies, 2 are outstation. Is it possible for us to setup another JDE server there and synchronize them? We are also looking to the possiblity of utilising the WebClient technology. However, our leased line is 64kbps, is it enough for us to run WebClient? We have around 80-100 users outstation.

 

[Larry_Jones]

Are the numbers of users given total seats or estimated concurrent user load? How many users are you currently supporting on this configuration?

I also would like to know what is the distance between the server location and the 5 companies to be inter-connected via the 100mbps line. OneWorld is an extremely "network" chatty application that is very subject to latency (band-width is not latency). If you are planning to run those 200+ users as fat clients and their sites are not in the same campus/building then you may be heading for disaster my friend.

Have you considered TSE/Citrix servers to handle all those remote users?

I'll let others make comments re running that many users on your existing hardware configuration . . . It sounds way under-powered to me.

I also want to hear what others have to say regarding 80+ users on a 64KB pipe . . .

Good questions, I'm looking forward to learning from them.

 

[ScottB]

I agree with Larry, you are under powered. Before even thinking about going live, you need to upgrade your data infrastructure to handle all those remote users. JDE needs about 8k of bandwidth per user using thin client technology (TSE/Citrix). Just do the math and your easily in trouble. I have no experience with the Webclient, but I would think you would want a larger data pipe for that also. What type of network are you on, i.e. ISDN, Frame, DSL? Depending on the number of users at each location, you may need a T1 for each site. This gets very costly. I would suggest bringing in a network expert to get your infrastructure up to speed first.

 

[samuel]

Thanks Larry and Scott,

Seems like JDE utilizes quite a big bandwidth of 8K per user. My concurrent user is around 50 now. Even then, our system is quite slow whenever we build update packages. I forgot to mention we are running on clusters.

Well Scott, we are currently running
-internal LAN running 10/100 mbps
-and server running 1000 to 100 switches
-radius of subsidiaries around 1km

WAN is max 48kbps(not 64kbps as stated previously, sorry)
-ISDN leased line
-the LAN at the outstation place is running 10MBPS

I read on Windows TSE and it seems like a very suitable solution as we can control it remotely and the small bandwidth it takes up. And all the PC's in my place are Windows based. This will mean lower costs and much reduced manpower maintenance.... Anybody can give any insights and experience running Windows TSE? Preferably problems faced? With the server performing such heavy load, I assume it should be a very powerful machine.

Anyway, my boss is intending to get JDE consultants in to propose a solution. I'm just checking out the best solution from you guys because the consultants in my place haven't been giving us good service and advice. We wanna make sure we get the best of what we pay for.

Thanks a lot for the response!

 

[ScottB]

Samuel,

We are currently running Citrix MetaFrame for our "thin" clients and it is
working well. I only have around 60 to 70 users. I am using two IBM
Netfinity 6000 with dual Pentium Zeon processors and 2.5 GB RAM each. We
are starting to see a slow down for the "thin" clients. I believe our
consultant recommended no more than 30 users per Citrix server. The reason
we are using Citrix is it has a better history of performance and ease of
managability than TSE. Also, I don't believe TSE can do load balancing very
well, Citrix is exellent at load balancing.

Our "fat" clients use close to 40k per user. Our LAN is running a pure
100MB network with a gigabit backbone. We are on a frame cloud with
Norlight as our service provider. Prior to go live, we had two T1 lines and
four 56k lines for our six locations. Currently, only one site still has a
56k line, everyone else is on at least 256k. JDE CNC's will help tell you
what you need, but I would recommend talking with a network expert.

Good Luck!

 

[samuel]

Re: RE: CNC Question

Thanks Scott,

Hence, I understand if I use TSE for JDE, it will be something like using JDE through Internet Explorer? Then is the functionality and usability still the same? I've run throught the Citrix Online Demo and I guess it should be the same right?

Then user licences will also have to change? Because we just bought an extra of 200 users from JDE, and the licences are stuck to the particular PC name. In terminal services, how would the licences function?

Thank you for all the replies again. I've realy gained much in areas where reading can't get me there.

 

[Quality]

I agree T1 should be the choice base on what I experienced. There is a “Time Out” setting in OneWorld, usually 60 seconds or so, the users will get some kind of communication error if times out due to high volume of packets transmission between client/server and server.

 

[clee]

RE: RE: CNC Question

I'm not sure about the license. My company uses a combination of Citrix
clients and 'fat' clients. With Citrix clients, development tools, UTB,
package build/deployment, and running of UBE locally are not possible.
Citrix is ideal for end-users who don't need development/admin stuff.



Chi Lee
IT Project Leader, Va International Terminals, Inc.
B7331 SP11.3, NT4 ES/DS, Citrix, Win2K clients, SQL Server7

 

[Larry_Jones]

Re: RE: CNC Question

Samuel,

TSE/Citrix is not the same as using a Web Client. TSE/Citrix is nothing more than installing a Fat Client on a specialized Windows Server that acts like a fancy PC Anywhere - supporting multiple users rather than one. Behavior is very much like Fat Client - although there are a few differences/restrictions. Web Clients on the other hand are quite different and require a different infrastructure to support. The user experience is different also (or so I've gathered - I haven't run it myself).

JDE Licenses are not stuck to a particular PC (Fat Client) until you install on that PC. You remove and regain the license just by uninstalling.
Named licenses do not really apply in a TSE/Web environment. You are actually on an honor system there. You legally are required to have sufficient number of licenses for the total number of users - but as yet they have no enforcement mechanism for this.

Does this help?

 

[ag_cjc]

Re: RE: RE: CNC Question

We do all those things on Citrix clients. There is a dos command that runs when we log in, if we're in a OWDeveloper group. It creates a virtual drive that is independant for each user account. In that virtual drive is our B7 directory. We've been on XE for about a year without a fat client at all.

 

[samuel]

Re: RE: RE: CNC Question

Thanks for all the replies guys. My company is going ahead with Citrix.

May I know the client configurations or recommended specifications for clients?