KevSoft TScale
Systems Administrators Guide (1.2)
Table of Contents
KevSoft TScale
Systems Administrators Guide (1.2)
1. Introduction
1.1.
Welcome to TScale
Thank you for purchasing TScale. This document guides you through the installation, setup, and use of TScale. KevSoft is dedicated to providing the best in NT scalability and performance
enhancement utilities for Windows servers. We hope that you will get great value from the addition of TScale to your environment.
1.2.
What to do if you have questions
KevSoft provides support for TScale through our online support forum. To access this forum go to www.kevsoft.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi. To access the support forums you will need to
have your user ID and password. These should have been issued to you when KevSoft delivered your software to you. If you do not have your user ID and password, then please send email to [email protected]. If you have questions about purchasing TScale please send email to [email protected].
1.3. What
is
TScale?
TScale is a scalability utility for Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services and Windows
Terminal Server running Citrix® MetaFrameTM or Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) clients. TScale works by optimizing how applications running on terminal servers are loaded into memory. TScale improves the performance and scalability of applications running on terminal servers by
eliminating the cases where applications components conflict with each other in memory and are written out to the page file. This drastically reduces cache utilization, virtual memory utilization, and increases the number of users and applications that can be supported by a terminal server. TScale typically allows an existing Citrix Terminal Server to support between 30% and 40% more sessions or users.
2. Installing
TScale
you do the TScale install, and let your nightly reboot complete the MMC install for you. TScale does not require that the server upon which it is being installed be restarted or rebooted. This allows you to install and set up TScale on a production system while it is running without impacting production users. If you wish to download MMC you may do so at:
The TScale Download page:
http://www.kevsoft.com/Download.html
The Microsoft MMC Download page:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/mmc/mmcdown.asp
2.1.
Starting the Installation Program
TScale is delivered in a self-extracting compressed file. Double-click on TScale.EXE file in order to launch the setup program. The following dialog box will appear. Follow the steps outlined below to install TScale.
2. Click “Yes” to accept the TScale End User License Agreement
When you received your copy of TScale, you should have also received via email a license key. This license key must be entered into the installation program at the time you install TScale.
Two kinds of license keys are shipped with TScale. An evaluation license key is shipped when you are evaluating the product at no charge. This key allows the product to perform optimizations for 30 days, after which time the product will automatically cease to optimize the scalability of your terminal server.
3. Enter your name, your company or organization name and the license key in the boxes provided in the dialog box below.
5. Choose a location for TScale to place its applications data and backup files. It is very important that you choose a location for which the TScale service has write permissions, and that you choose a location where any user who logs onto the server to perform manual optimizations will have write permissions. It is also important that you choose a location that has at least 200MB of free disk space available.
7. Press the “Next” button to start the installation of TScale
9. Pressing OK in the dialog box above will launch Windows Scheduled Tasks. The name of the scheduled task is TscaleBace – optimize.
11. Select the “Schedule” tab on the Scheduled Tasks dialog box. Optimization tasks should be run when the applications on the server are either not being used or are being used as lightly as possible. The reason for this is that TScale cannot optimize applications components that are in use. So, you should consider the following options for scheduling optimizations tasks:
• If you reboot your servers every night, simply select the “Run at system startup option”. This will ensure that you will run an optimization session right after each reboot, which will allow TScale to catch components before they are loaded by applications and users.
• If you reboot your servers infrequently, then select a time when the servers are lightly used, AND the “Run at system startup option”. This will allow TScale to optimize the majority of components when the system is lightly used, and optimize the remaining in use components upon system startup whenever you do reboot.
Schedule an optimization session to occur at system restart so the optimization occurs before users load applications.
3.
Launching the TScale Console
This application has two ways of viewing optimizations. The Sessions view contains a list of all optimizations that have been done to date. This list also includes the next optimization which will occur which is listed as “Pending”. The Applications view lists all of the optimizations that have been done by application. Between these two views you will be able to see both how applications have been optimized over time, and what the total optimizations are for each application. The TScale Console will also allow you to change how and when TScale runs, as well as undoing changes made by TScale.
3.1. Viewing Pending Optimizations
A screen will appear indicating the progress that the program is making in the process of updating the pending list. The result of this calculations process will be displayed in a tree under the Pending node.
.
Once the update process has completed, you will see a new node underneath the Sessions Node in the TScale Console. It will be listed with a name of “Pending (as of mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm) where the date and time are the date and time at which you have updated the list of pending optimizations.
When you highlight the “Pending” node in the tree, you will see a bar graph similar to the one above. In this bar graph, the height of the green bars represents the amount of virtual memory that TScale will save you per instance of each optimized application. The best way to use this
3.2.
What To Do About In Use Components That Failed To Optimize
In general, TScale cannot optimize components of applications that are in use at the time that the optimization session is run. In order to ensure that you get the maximum benefit from TScale, you need to run optimization sessions when applications components are not in use. The single best way to do this is to schedule optimization sessions to occur upon System Restart, since very few
applications components get loaded automatically upon the start of the server. Please see section 3.9, Scheduling Optimizations Sessions for more information about the best way to schedule optimization sessions.
If TScale encounters an application or component that it wishes to optimize, but finds that it cannot optimize this component because it is in use, this component will reappear in the Pending folder with a special flag. There are two special flags that TScale uses to mark components that have failed to optimize.
The TScale Console will also flag a component with a red flag under two conditions:
• Sometimes a process will create a temporary component that is found by the TScale
analysis service, but when the optimization session is run, that component has been deleted. This occurs often when new software is installed. If items which have been deleted are showing up in the Pending folder with red flags, this can be ignored.
• Sometimes a component will be protected in a manner which prevents it from being
accessed by the TScale Optimization program. This will occur if the file permissions for the program are such that only its calling process can access it. If this is the case, and the VM savings for that component are significant, then you may want to modify the file
permissions for that component so that TScale can optimize it.
3.3.
Excluding Processes and Components From Optimization
Prior to running either a manually invoked optimization, or an automatically scheduled
optimization, you should check to see if you should modify the list of processes and components that should be excluded from optimization. If you are running any e-commerce applications on your terminal server that include any digitally signed components, you should add these
components to the exclusion list. If you have any other digitally signed components running on your terminal server you should add them as well.
The ability to exclude processes from optimization is managed at two levels in TScale. You can exclude an entire process (meaning an application and all of it components) by placing that application the process exclusion list. You can also exclude just a specific component of an application (.DLL or .OCX), by placing that component in the component exclusion list.
To add either a process or component to the exclusion list, click the “+” button in the upper right. This will bring up a file browse menu that will allow you to browse to the file that corresponds to the process or component that you wish to exclude. You may also select multiple files by using a wildcard (*.API).
You should also make sure that the “Automatically add restored components to the exclusion list” checkbox is checked. This ensures that if you later choose to Undo an optimization, that the
3.4.
Executing a Manual Optimization
In order to cause TScale to optimize your applications, you will need to either manually start an optimization session, or create a scheduled task to perform optimization. Scheduled optimizations are covered later in this manual.
3.5.
Viewing the Results of Optimization Sessions
Once you have run an optimization session, you will see another node under the Sessions node in the tree of the TScale Console. In fact, you will see a node appear for each optimization session that you run. It is recommended that you run an optimization session once a day (actually once a night, if your production usage is during the day).
After you have run several optimization sessions, the tree control in the TScale Console will appear similar to the picture below.
In the picture above, you can see that optimization information is presented on an optimization session basis. Over time as the optimization sessions “catch” all of the components on the system, the system will become fully optimized. At that point the Optimizations Summary Graph will start to “flatten out”, indicating that the system has been fully optimized.
3.6. The Sessions Optimizations Graph
If you click on and highlight the node associated with a particular optimization session, then you will get a bar chart in the right pane that shows you the savings for each process that was optimized in that particular optimization session. The chart will typically look something like the one in the screen below:
3.7.
The Applications Optimization Graph
The Applications tree in the TScale Console shows you the total optimizations that have occurred to each optimized application across all optimization sessions. The applications view shows the optimizations performed over time rolled up on a per applications basis. The purpose of this view is to prevent the need for going through all of the different optimization sessions to find out how much a particular application has benefited from TScale. So the benefits on a per applications basis are simply listed in the applications tree.
To use the information in the applications tree, simply pick the applications that are run by every user on your terminal server system. Then multiply the savings depicted in the bar chart for these applications by the number of users that run each application. Add up the per-application savings and you get the total impact of TScale upon the virtual memory of your terminal server.
3.8.
Using the Export Function to Analyze TScale Results
If you right click on the Applications Node (as depicted on the left below), and then select Export, you will bring up a dialogue box similar to the one depicted on the right below. Select Text
If you open the file produced by the export feature of the TScale console, you will be able to build a section like the one below for each of the heavily used applications in your Terminal Server environment.
For more details on how to use this information, and on how to correlate it with information about your Terminal Server that you can gather via other means, please see the “How to Evaluate TScale 1.2” manual.
In the spreadsheet above, you can see that TScale is saving 7.6 MB of VM for each user who loads Notes. If there are 50 concurrent Notes users, the total savings is a little over 380 MB for this one application. Application Component VM Size Before (KB) VM Size After (KB) VM Saved (KB)
NLNOTES.EXE D:\PROGRA~1\NOTES\NLSXBE.DLL 672 88 584
NLNOTES.EXE D:\PROGRA~1\NOTES\NSEN31EN.DLL 24 12 12
NLNOTES.EXE D:\PROGRA~1\NOTES\NSKN31EN.DLL 24 12 12
NLNOTES.EXE D:\PROGRA~1\NOTES\NNTCP.DLL 92 20 72
NLNOTES.EXE D:\PROGRA~1\NOTES\NTCP.DLL 44 16 28
NLNOTES.EXE D:\PROGRA~1\NOTES\NAMHOOK.DLL 28 16 12
NLNOTES.EXE D:\PROGRA~1\NOTES\NICNV.DLL 24 12 12
NLNOTES.EXE D:\PROGRA~1\NOTES\NPLUGINS.DLL 88 24 64
NLNOTES.EXE D:\PROGRA~1\NOTES\NNOTES.DLL 7400 660 6740
NLNOTES.EXE D:\PROGRA~1\NOTES\LTSSB01.DLL 72 16 56
NLNOTES.EXE D:\PROGRA~1\NOTES\NDBNOTES.DLL 36 16 20
8504 892 7612
Per Instance VM Savings For Notes 7612
Typcial Number of Concurrent User 50
3.9.
Scheduling Optimization Sessions
Selecting Schedule on the menu item will cause the following dialog box to appear. You should make sure that the path for the program TScaleBace.exe in the Run field is the same path that you installed TScale in. TScaleBace.exe is the program that performs the actual optimizations, so it must be called correctly from this menu in order for any actual optimizations to occur.
If at any time you wish for optimizations to stop occurring, simply uncheck the “Enabled
Click on the “Schedule” tab on this dialog box to schedule the time of your optimization sessions. The schedule tab should appear similar to the dialog box below. It is strongly recommended that if you reboot your servers periodically, that you schedule the optimization task to occur at system startup as depicted in the picture below. In order for TScale optimizations to take effect, they must be run while the applications being optimized are not in use. Running optimization sessions immediately after a reboot is the best way to ensure that TScale optimization sessions are
3.10.
Using Your Own Scheduler
If you do not have the Windows Scheduled Tasks add in installed, or you do not wish to use it, and wish to use a different scheduler instead, you simply need to schedule the running of a program in the task scheduler of your choice. Place the following command line in the task scheduler of your choice in order to schedule an optimization session:
4. What to do if an Application Stops Working
There are certain applications that contain components that are incompatible with TScale. If TScale optimizes one of these components, that component will be unable to load, and a portion of the application or the entire application will cease to function. The most frequent cause of such an incompatibility is a component that is digitally signed. TScale ships with a default exclusion list of components that either do not benefit from optimization, or are incompatible with optimization. If after an optimization session you find that an application (process) or component is not loading and executing properly, start the TScale Console and undo the problem optimization.
The first step to take in this situation is to select the About KevSoft menu item, and select the Contact Technical Support link. This feature will attach several important TScale files to an email and send them to technical support personnel at KevSoft. After you take this step, you must decide how you wish to undo the problem optimization. TScale offers you the following options:
1. If everything was working until the most recent optimization session, you can simply undo that session. Select the most recent optimization session, right click on it, and then select Undo. This will reverse the effects of the most recent optimization session, and place all restored components in the exclusion list so that they are not optimized again. You will need to ask all users who are using the effected application(s) to log off and log back on, which will cause them to load the original un-optimized application instead of the previously optimized one.
2. If the problem can be isolated to a particular DLL, find that DLL in a node in the Sessions tree. Right-click on that DLL, and then select Undo. This will undo the optimization for that DLL and then place it in the exclusion list so that it is not optimized again. You will need to ask users to exit and reload this application in order for the restored application to be loaded instead of the previously optimized one.
3. If the problem can be isolated to a particular application, find that application in the
Applications tree. Right-click on the application name in the tree, and select Undo. This will undo all of the optimizations for that application and place it and its components in the exclusion list. You will again need to ask users to log off of the application and restart it for them to load the restored version of the application.
4. In Programs/TScale on the Start Menu is a program named “Undo TScale Optimizations”. This program will bring up a list of all optimized components. You can check the ones to restore, and uncheck the ones to keep in their optimized state. If you leave them all checked, running this program will undo all of the optimizations that have ever been done on your server. You will need to ask users to reload their applications in order for the restored applications to be loaded instead of the previously optimized ones.
The screen below depicts the selection of the ASRCH32.API component of the Acrobat reader. .API files are often digitally signed, so it is recommended to place them in the exclusion list.
5. Upgrading an Evaluation License to a Production License
If you received or downloaded an evaluation copy of TScale, and you subsequently wish to purchase TScale, you will receive a production license key to use in place of your original evaluation license key. To upgrade from an evaluation copy of TScale to a production copy of TScale please perform the following steps.
First, right-click on any node in the TScale Console, and select the About TScale menu item. The dialog box below will appear:
Press the “Activate” button. This will cause the dialog box below to appear.
