>From RiOS 6.0 or 6.1, the Riverbed's can now accelerate ICA traffic, and you >can apply some QoS to give priority to screen refreshes and keyboard strokes, >and downgrade printing and other traffic that's in the ICA tunnel. We're >seeing about a 50-60% reduction in the amount of data the Citrix XenApp >clients are needing to send over the WAN, mostly from the print traffic. If >you split the print traffic out to be separate from the ICA tunnel (ie. Get >your XenApp server to print direct to the printer rather than have the client >print it) we're getting around 88% WAN reduction for that traffic. HTTP >traffic is showing around 80% reduction.
Doesn't always work though, we have some cheapo thin clients (Axel) that only have a partially implemented/hacked up version of the ICA protocol onboard (they don't support Session Reliability on port 2598 and the Riverbed's don't get a valid response back when trying to negotiate with them on the port 1494 traffic) so can't do any acceleration for them. Thick clients are fine. The Riverbeds can't do RDP acceleration straight out the box like it can with the ICA traffic. You need to be able to disable the compression/encryption on the RDP sessions (which you can't do on some thin clients, we've got some Wyse S-10's I think which use WinCE which you can't modify the settings on) so that it can apply it's default compression to the traffic. Interestingly the Expand Networks boxes CAN do RDP acceleration without having to modify anything on the client or server, yet they can't do ICA acceleration without having to disable the encryption/compression on the XenApp server. I believe Riverbed will be able to do both and RDP and ICA without needing to do anything on client or server from the next RiOS version due in a few months. We had a hard look at Expand Networks and Riverbed's (and Cisco WAAS) and while the Expand Networks guys were really really helpful in supporting our Proof of Concept, their boxes were by far the easiest of the three to get up and running, and gave good results on what it did, we felt the company didn't have the funding/future vision/R&D compared to Riverbed. We started looking at Expand after seeing their stall at a trade show back in October 2009 where they were hyping up their ICA acceleration abilities and their new mobile client for laptop users etc which was in beta at the time. It's end of January 2011 and they've yet to release this mobile client, with their website still saying 'Available 2010'. This kinda started ringing alarm bells for us about the company and where they're going. Gartner have dropped them from their latest Magic Quadrant due to not meeting the revenues criteria? Pricewise, Riverbed were more expensive, but, when we started playing hardball with them (via a Riverbed Partner/reseller) we found they could heavily discount the prices down to not a whole lot more then what Expand Networks would do. Still wasn't the cheapest IT product we've bought though! Also factor in the Central Management Console prices in on your quotes, it's another coupe of grand for the software but makes managing multiple boxes a lot easier. If you're trying to accelerate video and have thick clients at the remote ends, you might see more of a benefit from upgrading up towards XenApp 6.0 with its HDX support. You might be interested in watching a session by Bernhard Tritsch at last year's TechEd Eurrope 2010 comparing the response of the HDX protocol with RDP,RemoteFX,PCoIP etc by running side by side video's over varying bandwidth and latency WAN links. Kinda interesting: RDP, RemoteFX, ICA/HDX, EOP and PCoIP - VDI Remoting Protocols Turned Inside Out http://www.msteched.com/2010/Europe/VIR401 Hope that lot helps! Steve. From: Kim Longenbaugh [mailto:k...@colonialsavings.com] Sent: 25 January 2011 21:15 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Riverbed Steelhead Since your primary application at the remote sites is Citrix, look at the Citrix WanScalers (or Branch repeaters). They're much less expensive than most of the other contenders, especially Riverbed, and have the extra added benefit that no other optimizer can offer, true Citrix ICA optimization. We did evals of Riverbed, and while it worked great, it didn't accelerate ICA directly, and it costs out the wazzu. Also, if you're providing internet access through the user's Citrix sessions, I don't understand why they'd see latency because of the wan links between headquarters and remote site. Same goes for streaming video. If your users are doing those things in their Citrix sessions, the browsing and streaming are taking place at headquarters, and the remote users are just seeing the results in their Citrix windows. From: David Mazzaccaro [mailto:david.mazzacc...@hudsonmobility.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2011 2:49 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Riverbed Steelhead Hi all, I am looking to optimize my WAN. I have 8 locations that all come back to my main site (all locations are being bumped up from fractional Ts to 1.5Mbps T1 circuits) There are no servers or internet access at any remote sites, and all applications are run on our Citrix 4.0 servers at the main site. Even with full T1 lines and citrix, these remote sites suffer from latency, especially internet browsing. I am wondering what is out there to help speed things up. I stumbled on Riverbed's Steelhead product and am waiting for a call back to discuss their offerings. >From what little I've read, riverbed does a great job of reducing some types >of traffic, but I'm not sure what I can do about certain things like streaming >internet video. 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