Domino Blog

News, views and directions on IBM Lotus Domino

Have quite a few customers running Notes via Citrix.

Cheers

Robert Baehr

The Unofficial Poster Child for Lotus Foundations, Lotus Notes, and Domino

Andrea, I suppose you already read about my recent struggle to get Notes 8.5.1 live in peace with Windows x64 and XenApp 5.0 ;-)

Here are some more history backgrounds:

1. After dealing the obstacles with setup, we are running Notes 8.0.2 in basic mode with Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 and Windows 2003 R2 x86 since last year (We started the project with 7.0.2).

2. The pilot with Notes 8.5 in standard mode on the same Windows/Citrix platform is frozen since weeks because of unresolved issues with misplaced calendar entries. Also this untertaking is questionable because of the increased ressource consumption of Notes in the Eclipse framework. The responsible operater of the computing centre may double or trible the server farm just for running Notes or he may switch the farm to x64. The later would also be a project to move all other application to x64. That means significat testing efforts.

3. In another project we are in the comfortable situation to start from nothing and build a Citrix environment around Notes, which is the heard of an CRM system used by an international sales team. After looking at the announced improvments of Notes 8.5.1 in the area of Citrix support and a detailed evaluation of its system requirements, we decided to head over to the latest: Windows Server 2008 x64 and Citrix XenApp 5.0.

At this point we stuck now: This combination turns out to be very unstable and we observe a reproducible pattern of crashes. IBM support is working on this show stopper (hopefully). Any help is welcome, because the whole system should move into international testing at the end of the month. I don't want to see Notes as the bad guy in the game, who don't want to play nicely with the others. At least we may switch back to known grounds (-> 1.), but this could hardly be called progress...

Hi

we have been on Notes 8.0.2 on Citrix since the beginning. We are using the standard client (Eclipse). The only significant problem we had / have is that every now and again the users data drive gets messed up (the client starts and then freezes) and we need to reinstall the client. This happens about 1 a week, to different or also the same person a couple of times. After reinstalling Notes for that specific person we can just copy the old data directory back and all is well... very odd - IBM has checked it out but could not find a solution. I am hoping that it will be better with Notes 8.5.1 - well see :o)

You can contact me I would be very happy to share my experiences with you - we have about 130 users on 6 Citrix servers and 3 Domino servers (main, webmail and traveller).

Greetings from sunny Austria

Ursus

Hello,

We've been using Notes on Citrix since 6.5.4. We have people on 6.5.4, 7.0.3 and one person (me) using 8.5.1 basic client on Citrix. We've just upgraded to 8.5.1 and I am testing the Citrix client. No problems so far. Will be rolling out the 8.5.1 basic client to all Citrix users after the first of the new year.

Steve Breitenbach

Hey Andrea,

We've got about 16,000 Notes 6.5.4 clients on 64-bit Citrix, and a couple hundred piloting 8.0.2 Basic. Don't know the specific Citrix versions off-hand. I'm on vacation next week, but ping me the week after and I can hook you up with the guys on my team who tested in detail. We're not seeing any functionality or performance issues specific to the Citrix environment. Our biggest concerns were memory footprint (with 16,000 users, a relatively small difference in footprint can mean hundreds of additional servers).

I've implemented Lotus Notes 8.5.1 MU with user's data directory on the user's home share this week. -> No problems, but it was a W2K8/XenApp 5.0 32Bit installation

Some weeks ago I've installed Lotus Notes 8.5.1 MU with local user's data on W2K8/XenApp 5.0 64-Bit and the client crashed reproducible. The crash occurs in the GDI-area and we have no solution for it so far and the productive deployment of LN 8.5.1 on XenApp 5.0 (64Bit) is deplayed. It seems to be the same problem P. Meuser has reported. I've asked Gary D. and Doug C. (via DPP) to take a look into it, but no solution so far. The PMR is 66883 SGC 724.

We run 8.0.2 Basic, so we did that too for the few Citrix users (about 5 to 10).

I am working with multiple customers to implement their Notes 8.5.1 Citrix environment. We started with 3 customers using the English version first as a POC but will start the rollout soon.

Since 8.5.1 the Notes on Citrix world has changed and all my customers like the way it is now installed (multi-user install with a basedir).

We are continuing to point the basedir to the file-server because this is the only way our customers can handle Notes on Citrix in their environments.

Most customers need more than one language and using MUI in combination with a multiuser installation is a good combination.

From performance point of view most customers are happy with the standard client in 8.5.1 but we have just a couple of users at the same time right now and we don't know how scalable the machines will be running many Standard Notes Clients.

-- Daniel Nashed

Unfortunately, IBM support is currently trying to bounce/close PMRs of Citrix crashes with "Windows Server 2008 R2 is not supported, even not by Citrix" :-(

What is the cause of such behavior?

Because of a bug(!) in NSD, NSD is reporting Windows/2008 R2 even if run on Windows Server 2008.

Unfortunately, we customers have to proove that we are running a supported configuration, so here are the details how one can easily check where Notes 8.5.1 is really running on:

If a NSD dump is created on a Windows Server 2008 R2 system, NSD will report

Windows/2008 R2 6.1 ... (Build 7600) ...

If a NSD dump is created on a Windows Server 2008 system, NSD will report

Windows/2008 R2 6.0 ... (Build 6001) ... Service Pack 1 or

Windows/2008 R2 6.0 .... (Build 6002) ... Service Pack 2.

So IBM, please stop bouncing such PMRs because of a bug in a IBM software product ... you are able to distinguish a real W2K8R2 system by comparing the build numbers.

We have been running Notes 7.0.3 in Citrix (Win2003 x86) for quiet some time. It is very stable and predictable. I have not had any success in gett 8.0.2 or 8.5 standard to work at all in Citrix.

I have recently gotten 8.5.1 standard to run great in both single and multi-user install modes BUT ONLY on a published desktop. Even with the single user mode and modifying the shortcuts to include the path to the ini, Notes 8.5.1 has never ran for us as a seamless app. The splash screen is displayed for about a minute and then nothing is displayed. the user's session is still open and notes is running (accourding to the server).

Windows 2003 Sp2 x86

xenApp 5.0 FP2

@11/@Matt: You may use my Fix-Script for 8.0.2/8.5 on Citrix.

{ Link }

But I won't use pre-8.5.1 Notes anymore.

IBM has done a pretty good job with Lotus Notes 8.5.1 on Citrix (in regards to installation).

@11: I've seen such behavior once. It was caused by setting the working directory to the Notes data directory when publishing the App. After setting it to the Notes program directory, it works

@6: finally IBM Support has found a solution for our crashes: The crashes were caused by gdiplus.dll and a fix from MS is available.

I have been running the Notes 8 basic client on Citix MetaFrame (FR3) server, with Win 2000 as the OS, for over a year. I have not experienced any signifcant issues with it. I have upgraded it to 8.0.3 CCH3.

I recently attempted to run the Standard client and I have not been able to get it to work properly.

I would like to see the Notes installer become Citrix aware and I would like to see the setup documentation re-written.

Until then I will have to stick with the basic client.

where can i find the gdiplus.dll fix from MS ?

Does it mean Hotfix 958652 ?

I've implemented Lotus Notes 8.5.1 MU with user's data directory on the user's home share this week. -> No problems, but it was a W2K8/XenApp 5.0 32Bit installation

Some weeks ago I've installed Lotus Notes 8.5.1 MU with local user's data on W2K8/XenApp 5.0 64-Bit and the client crashed reproducible. The crash occurs in the GDI-area and we have no solution for it so far and the productive deployment of LN 8.5.1 on XenApp 5.0 (64Bit) is deplayed. It seems to be the same problem P. Meuser has reported. I've asked Gary D. and Doug C. (via DPP) to take a look into it, but no solution so far. The PMR is 66883 SGC 724.

@Doug/@16: My Fix-Script published in Daniel Nashed Blog may help, but I strongly recommend to upgrade to 8.5.1.

@17/@18: We've got Fix KB971589v2 from MS (thanks to IBM support) and no crashes could be observed since then

ksdlfjlka

Alguien tiene una lista de actividades que debean llevarse a cabo en elupgrade del cliente lotus 6.5.4 a 8.5.1 que pueda compartirmela.

Muchas gracias a quien pueda facilitarmela.

Saludos

Alguien tiene una lista de actividades que debean llevarse a cabo en elupgrade del cliente lotus 6.5.4 a 8.5.1 en citrix que pueda compartirmela.

Muchas gracias a quien pueda facilitarmela.

Saludos