Terminal Server Question

[workingMan]

Greetings to all!

With regards to the title, I don't have much experience and knowledge in using/configuring terminal server. I just got some questions that I hope I can discuss it here.

Case Scenario
We got a terminal server hosted in UK (Windows Server 2003 Standard SP1) and we have about 30 users at the moment here in our office located in Asia. The user experience here is that accessing the TS is very slow, for example:
1. Logging in and off can take a good 15 seconds or maybe more.
2. Browsing to files and documents can take a few seconds for win explorer to load.
3. Even when you click on the start button, it will take probably 3 to 5 seconds for the start menu to appear.

This TS is generally used for a database program for users to input customer records, transactions etc.

Questions to Asked
1. Is a terminal server actually this slow, especially in different geographical area? I've read that Citrix is a better and faster for such situation.

2. I have not been given full administrator rights to "configure" the server, but is it possible if i were to ask them to setup a test environment for me to say "play" or tweak settings and registry to what I've read/google so far. The guys in UK tested the TS there and experience normal/fast speed but that is not the case here. Hence, this the reason why I asked if it's possible for a test environment to be setup. Came across this and I thought I would want to try it out.

3. Could the network setup be the reason for this latency? Locally, other network usage here like file/printer sharing and access, internet seems to be working normally, no speed issues here. However, if network is something that I should look into, what is it that I need to look at?

I've been reading up a lot lately on this, but have not done any work yet for this. Just need to digest more info at the moment.

Really hope to have some guidance and tips from all professionals out there who have any experience in this.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers All!

[tje210]

i don't know how professional you'd consider me, but my first step in this would be to check and see how long packets take end-to-end. also test out a couple different solutions... it shouldn't be difficult to implement them for a single testbed. that's just my opinion as a single-user solution kind of guy... don't know how the best single-user solution would scale for your purposes.

[ossyemeh]

First of all you have to check the speed of your connection between the two locations. If you have 56K connection you cannot expect fast response. Expand to something higher than what you are using and it will be better. Or more still you can suggest for another server to host the application and the log on process at your location and then replicate to the Server in UK. this will be a better plan as the user will work without delay though it will need more overhead for the cost of the server and its administration. Regards

[Phlosten]

The biggest factor in terminal server performance is latency. If the latency between your location and the terminal server is greater than 150 ms then your experience is going to be lacking. Do a ping from your location to the terminal server address and see what the response time is.

If latency is reasonable and experience is still slow then the issue is probably a resource factor on the terminal server itself. Does it have plenty of RAM and fast IO speeds for the hard drives?

Also running terminal server connections at high colour rates can slow things down. Limit to maixmum 15 bit colour. Turn off audio redirection. Limit printer redirection.

Also priorisise RDP traffic over the network so that terminal server sessions have enough bandwidth to work with.

[workingMan]

Hi all.. thanks and sorry for the late reply on this. I appreciate any kind of tips/response.

It's a bit odd because usually I will test the connection speed for such things but I didn't this time. I always thought it was something to do with the server itself.

Ayw, i did a ping test and the statistic are as follow. I ping to 2 servers separately:

1:
Ping statistics for
Packets: Sent = 231, Received = 227, Lost = 4 (1% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 354ms, Maximum = 401ms, Average = 357ms

2:
Ping statistics for
Packets: Sent = 267, Received = 264, Lost = 3 (1% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 262ms, Maximum = 274ms, Average = 262ms

I didn't realize that the connection was this slow! We are using a 6MBPS connection line in an office of about 30 people. In terms of network connection, any other tips/advise to optimize the speed? I will take a look at the other suggestions above and will post reply/findings.

Thanks again for all the advise!

Cheers!

[zelkea]

My .02 cents, I wouldn't stand up a Citrix environment it more of a dog then TS IMO. I am a huge fan of 2008 TS Gateway. I personally think this is a great solution for secure RDP sessions. I haven't used it for publishing applications yet so I can't speak to that.

[zelkea]

Also pathping might help identify where your bottleneck is if you have 2008 or windows 7 box around.