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Using VMWare and Citrix in Tandem?
Dysfnctnl85 asks: "As a follow up to the previous discussion 'Alternatives to Citrix Remote Computing?', I've hit another brick wall in my quest to enhance the way my company does remote computing. Right now I've setup Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 R2 on two 64-bit machines with 16gb of RAM each. Before I can setup Presentation Server 4, I need to install the Novell client to allow access to our NetWare servers. After doing some research on Google, and hopping forums on the Novell Support boards, I've determined that Novell has no plans to release a 64-bit client for any Microsoft OS until Vista launches." Has anyone managed to get VMWare, Citrix and 64-bit Windows working together?
"Now I'm sure there are other companies out there in a similar situation (as noted on the forums and Google Groups), so I then decided to look into the virtualization market to see if I can still make my dream happen. I've been emailing my Citrix rep who in turn has been speaking with a Citrix engineer who is currently training with VMWare, coincidentally. I'm wondering if anyone has successfully ran a VMWare + Citrix solution in order to fully take advantage of dual 64bit procs, a Windows 64-bit OS, and 16GB of RAM. I was thinking of running 2 Citrix Servers within VMWare to handle maybe 8GB, effectively making 4 public Citrix servers, but I'm not sure what the best solution would be."
The problem seems to be Novell drivers, not anything else. Try running it without Novell connectivity first.
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You could always run a 32 bit OS on the servers (at least till novell releases the 64bit client). If theres nothing you need specifically from the 64bit-ness you won't really be losing anything really (though I don't really know what hardware or software you plan on running).
In terms of security, A/D is actually a lot more of a headache than Novell's offering...
But your right, the biggest issue with citrix is the applications behind it, many windows programs are simply not designed with security or multiuser usage in mind, there are often ways to execute arbitrary code and very little protection against excessive resource utilisation, create a corrupt word document, load it up on a shared citrix server and watch the calls to support go through the roof.
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