The Data Store and SQL Server Deployment Strategies and Troubleshooting

Frank Marzullo

Senior Escalation Engineer, Critical Situation response team

May 8, 2012

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• XenApp Data Store deployments and challenges

• High Performance Vs. High Availability

• Tools and Troubleshooting Methodology

• SQL Replication and the identity crisis

• XenApp 6.5 Improved IMA performance

Agenda

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XenApp Data Store

Deployments and Challenges

Quick Access

&

Always Available

Where do I put my Data Store ?

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• IMA Ping – 20 byte per minute if no update data has been

received in the past 60 seconds.

• Read operations– happen via port 2512

• Write operations – happen via port 2513

• IMA Change notifications – also via port 2512

IMA Communication

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IMA Change Notification

Z D CZone 2

DataStore

MemberAny Zone

Z D CZone 1

2513

2512

2512

MembersZone 1

MembersZone 2

2512

2512

2512

2512

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What is IMA?

Data Store

1011011010 SSL 1011011010 SSL 1011011010 SSL 1011011101101110 111011011010 SSL 1011011010 SSL 1011011010 SSL 1011011101101110 11

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What is the Data Store ?

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Data Store

IMA access method

1011011010 SSL 1011011010 SSL 1011011010 SSL 1011011101101110 111011011010 SSL 1011011010 SSL 1011011010 SSL 1011011101101110 11ODBC

IMA

10110110101011011010

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Pre – XenApp 6.0 Post– XenApp 6.0

Stored Procedures

What is a Schema ?

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XenApp 5.0 & 4.5 XenApp 6.0 & 6.5

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• Persistent Store

• Farm Data Base hosted on SQL or Oracle

• Local Host Cache (LHC)

• Dynamic Store

• Volatile data stored in memory on Zone Data Collectors or Controllers only.

Farm Data Sets

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High Performance

Vs.

High Availability

• Cost ?

• Infrastructure Requirements ?

• Infrastructure Management ?

• Complexity Vs. Simplicity ?

Which do I choose ? Why can’t I have both ?

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SQL Options at a glance

Replication Mirroring

• High Performance over WAN.

• Transparent to IMA

• Recommended for -Geographically separated XenApp Farms.

• Special considerations for high latency WAN applications.

• Transparent to IMA

• Recommended for – Disaster Recovery scenarios.

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• XenApp 6 and 6.5 SQL Replication Important Considerations

• SQL Server 2005 Mirroring and Replication Caveats

• Data Store Replication with XenApp 5.0 using SQL 2008 with Windows Authentication

• Datastore Replication with XenApp 5.0 using SQL 2005 SP2 with Windows Authentication

• Database Mirroring Best Practices and Performance Considerations

• Using SQL Database Mirroring to Improve Citrix XenApp Server Farm Disaster Recovery Capabilities

Resources for SQL Replication & Mirroring

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Options at a glance

Physical Server Clusters Virtual Server Instances

• Very High TCO

• #1 HA solution for LAN’s

• Transparent to Application

• Lowest TCO with XenServer

• Dynamic Server Provisioning

• Fast recovery from Snap Shot

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• Virtualizing SQL Server 2008 with XenServer - Blog

• Virtualizing SQL Server 2008 with XenServer – White Paper

Resources for virtualizing SQL on XenServer

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Deprecated features in SQL 2012

Deprecated Features of Transactional Replication - The following transactional replication features were deprecated in SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008.

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Tools and Troubleshooting Methodology

• Citrix Diagnostic Facility Trace (CDF)

Tools and Troubleshooting Methodology

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• SQL Server Profiler Trace

• Msg 548, Level 16, State 2, Line 134 The insert failed. It

conflicted with an identity range check constraint in database

'YourDB', replicated table 'dbo.yourTABLE', column 'nodeid'.

Tools and Troubleshooting Methodology

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SQL Replication and the

“Identity Crisis”

Unique Identifier

Track Changes

Added by SQL

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• What is the “Identity Crisis” ?

• Who does it affect ?

• How do I deal with it if it happens to me ?

SQL Replication and the identity crisis

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• CDF Trace - CTX111961

• SQL Profiler Templates for IMA issues

• SQL 2005 Template

• SQL 2008 Template

• Data Store Replication checker tools

• For XenApp 5.0 and earlier - CTX111656

• For XenApp 6 - CTX124815

• HOW TO: Troubleshoot Application Performance with SQL Server

• SQL Diag & SQL Diag configuration Tool

Resources

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He who fails to plan

is planning to fail.- Winston Churchill (WW II)

31

• Advanced Concepts - XenApp Farm Maintenance

• Best practices for creating the Citrix Presentation Server data store on SQL 2005

• Best Practices for XenApp Administrators

Best Practice & Learning Resources

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• SQL Back ups – recovery models

• Working with tempdb in SQL Server 2005

• SQL Server Index Fragmentation and Its Resolution

Learning Resources

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XenApp 6.5 Improved IMA performance

XenApp 6.5 Improved IMA performance

• XenApp 6.5 introduces the Dynamic Data Center Provisioning

• In XenApp 6.5, servers can be configured in Session-host mode

• By Default XenApp servers are configured as Controllers

• Session-only XenApp servers run in a light-weight mode whose sole function is

to host XenApp sessions and nothing more. 

• Speeding up Farm Deployments with XenApp 6.5 – Part 1

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XenApp 6.5 Improved IMA performanceThe table below shows the functionality of the Controller vs. Session-only roles.

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• XenApp 6.5 Enterprise Scalable XenApp Deployments

This Scalability Document created by our product engineering and test team

provides granular details regarding the test scenarios and results shared in

previous slide and new improvements seen during RTM testing of XenApp 6.5

One last resource

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Key session takeaways:

Citrix Confidential - Do Not Distribute

• XenApp Data Store deployments and challenges

• Tools and Troubleshooting Methodology

• XenApp 6.5 Improved IMA performance

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Tools as a Servicehttp://Taas.Citrix.com/Beta

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