ArcGIS with Citrix- Performance and Known Issues

[SBurnh]

Hi

We are currently looking to deploy ArcGIS on Citrix across our Authority. Does anybody have any experience of running ArcGIS on Citrix as opposed to Desktop clients? We are especially interested in known issues/ performance and optimum settings for improving speed, which initial testing has shown to be very slow. We will be running on a minimum version of 9.3, but possibly 10.

Any help or advise would be much appreciated!

Thanks

[Richmondgis]

We have been using ArcGIS on Citrix for about a year now. It has really proven to be a good move for us. There are some nuances that need to be dealt with, but Im sure you will get use to it pretty quick. Though we serve out the application at this point, my IT person is looking into serveing out a desktop in the future. This may help out with some network printing issues that we are experiencing. Not sure if they are completley realted to Citrix though.

Good Luck

James Armstrong
Richmond County North Carolina

[ahixson]

We are in the process of doing the same thing with ArcGIS 10. We are putting it on a Citrix6 Farm on Server 2008 R2 servers.

To solve the printing issue, we have created a print server that is in the data center that is local to our Citrix farms. This allows the print jobs to off load the terminal servers quickly. When then have the print servers print directly to the local/network printers inthe various offices directly across the WAN. In our testing phase this is what yielded us the best results for printing.

Still, I was hoping there would be others with a Citrix 6 and ArcMap 10 environment that I could do more reading on so I can know how to optimize my Citrix installation to get the best performance for my environment.

[jduval]

We have moved to XenApp 6.0 in June 2010 and currently using 9.3 SP1. We want to move to ArcGIS 10.0 but am waiting to hear from ESRI if it has been tested/supported in this kind of Citrix Environment (OS is Windows Server 2008 SR2 64-bit). We currently only have 11 GIS users which are the only users on this server. Performance-wise, it's good for mapping and general analysis. I find it slow on editing and the help menu has issues (can't access from programs).

I found out today that because the license server is on Citrix, our local desktops/laptops won't be able to borrow (in ArcGIS 10) any licenses because it cannot directly connect to the license server. (The Citrix farm is in another city) This is a big drawback for us as we have users that go out in the field where there is no cellphone/internet coverage.

I'm interested in the comments in this thread...

Julie

[rhall]

I found out today that because the license server is on Citrix, our local desktops/laptops won't be able to borrow (in ArcGIS 10) any licenses because it cannot directly connect to the license server. (The Citrix farm is in another city) This is a big drawback for us as we have users that go out in the field where there is no cellphone/internet coverage.

I am not able to personally test this without access to a Citrix environment, but I double checked with a couple of sources that say you should be able to borrow a license from the license manager that is running in the Citrix environment as long as the client can connect to it. Maybe you could provide more details (error messages, connectivity issues, etc.)

[gponto18]

Julie - Don't give up hope:

1. Take a look at the following KB Article in response to a bug we've found with ArcInfo license borrowing:
http://resources.arcgis.com/content/...leShow&d=38021

2. If you are trying to borrow over latent connections you may also want to look at:
http://resources.arcgis.com/content/...leShow&d=35659

We do support ArcGIS Desktop 10 and License Manager 10 in Citrix environments. For that matter, the Citrix display rendered on your local system is not actually running on your local system but is in fact running on the Citrix server itself. Therefore the only connection to be concerned about is that between the Citrix server and the server running ArcGIS License Manager. If you can consume you should also be able to borrow, which makes me feel you are actually running into the borrow bug addressed the the first URL above.

Let us know what happens.

[jduval]

Hi, we haven't installed ArcGIS10 on the Citrix Environment yet, so I have not actually tested whether the borrowing would work or not. The IT managing our Citrix servers wanted me to investigate whether the license borrowing would work. ESRI Support said that my local desktop must be able to connect to the license manager.

My local desktop cannot connect to the Citrix server that is acting as the license manager. I connect to the Citrix servers via an internet portal.

What happens when I borrow a license? Does it create a license file? If my Citrix desktop borrowed the license, would I be able to copy it to my local desktop and use it?

I'm hoping to implement ArcGIS10 within the next week - I will keep you posted.

Julie

[jduval]

We are in the process of doing the same thing with ArcGIS 10. We are putting it on a Citrix6 Farm on Server 2008 R2 servers.

To solve the printing issue, we have created a print server that is in the data center that is local to our Citrix farms. This allows the print jobs to off load the terminal servers quickly. When then have the print servers print directly to the local/network printers inthe various offices directly across the WAN. In our testing phase this is what yielded us the best results for printing.

Still, I was hoping there would be others with a Citrix 6 and ArcMap 10 environment that I could do more reading on so I can know how to optimize my Citrix installation to get the best performance for my environment.

Hi ahixson, we are now running ArcGIS10 on XenApp6 running on Win Server 2008 R2 Std. ArcMap is very slow in performance - it sometimes takes up to 10 minutes just to add a data layer. Have you experienced abnormally slow performance? I have contacted ESRI support and it looks to be a Ctirix issue. I'm hoping ESRI will pursue this since I keep getting told that ESRI support ArcGIS 10 on Citrix.

Julie

[kgrassi]

I am not able to personally test this without access to a Citrix environment, but I double checked with a couple of sources that say you should be able to borrow a license from the license manager that is running in the Citrix environment as long as the client can connect to it. Maybe you could provide more details (error messages, connectivity issues, etc.)

If you can you may want to host the desktop license manager on a server that is not associated with your CITRIX farm but accessible to it. That is the solution that we at Miami-Dade County utilize and it works great.

[Richmondgis]

Though I earlier in this thread stated that we have experienced little to no problems in using the Citrix Deployment method for ArcGIS, there have been a few little pesky items. One of which follows:

When I thry to author and serve out a map (either through ArcServer or Publisher) using ArcGIS through the Citrix connection, the data links break and the end user (web or ArcReader) sees only the data holder in the TOC along with the broken link symbol.

Same map is then opened in ArcGIS on a local install, the data sources reset to exactly what they were before(but resetting is required), then the maps as served out (via ArcServer or Publisher) contain active links and all is well.

After researching this a bit, I did discover that when looking at the data sources for the .MXD file in ArcCatalog, the connection file found on the \Application Data\ESRI\ArcCatalog\[connection].sde path was set to where the IT folks are preserving the profile information that Citrix uses when a user is logging in. (see attached).

The data source file is shown on another computer - in this case:\\rcg-file1\appdata$\jearmstrong\Application Data\ESRI\ArcCatalog\SdeConnect@richmond_vector.sde - this is where the user profiles are being stored

Normally this connection would be "Database Connections\SdeConnect@richmond_vector.sde" which seems to resolve to C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\ESRI\ArcCatalog\Admin@richmond_vector.sde.

Is there a way to set this data connection path to allow data in a map service authored through the Citrix deployment of ArcGIS to be viewable by the end users? I realize there is a manual workaround, but that kind of defeats the purpose of running the GIS through Citrix. I hope somebody can shed some light on this issue.

thanks

James Armstrong
Richmond County, North Carolina
GIS

[gponto18]

Julie -

Is the poor performance on client side systems only? For example, if you can find a way to remote into the Citrix box (Win2k8) using RDP, do you find the performance remains slow? Also, running Task Manager on the Citrix box, how many ArcMap.exe's do you see running? ArcMap is a pretty hefty product it is quite easy to overwhelm a Citrix server with only a few clients.

[jduval]

Julie -

Is the poor performance on client side systems only? For example, if you can find a way to remote into the Citrix box (Win2k8) using RDP, do you find the performance remains slow? Also, running Task Manager on the Citrix box, how many ArcMap.exe's do you see running? ArcMap is a pretty hefty product it is quite easy to overwhelm a Citrix server with only a few clients.

ESRI Support asked to me to test that as well. When a user used RDP to remote in, the peformance was 'normal'.

When I run Task Manager, I only see my own apps running. We only have 10 users (clients) on a 16 CPU and 12GB Ram server (new since June 2010). The CPU usage rarely goes beyond 10%, memory usage is usually around 5GB. Performance was also extremely slow when only 1 user (administrator) was logged on. I don't think we are overwhelming our Citrix server...

Thanks for your feedback! Any other suggestions to try?

Julie

[BruceAnger]

We have had ArcFm running in a Citrix environment for 4 years and ever since IT put it on we have been begging them to take it off the citrix environment, it is frequently slow where it takes 10 mins to save or to do an edit, it won't change printers you need to convert map to a PDF first. And if you want a real exercise in futility try creating an A0 sized map and then adding or editing anything on the map.

By the way we recently were checking server loads on our system and while we found the server with SDE on it rarely used more then 50% of its processor, the citrix server seemed to be the one doing the calculations and was the server maxing out at 100% for minutes on end.

If you can avoid it, don't use citrix.

[masalter]

We are finding ArcMap 9.3 through XenApp 5 OK in some respects, but very difficult in others. In particular at the moment we are stuck trying to get hyperlinks to image files working as they always respond with "Unable to open '<path>\<file>'. Please make sure the path is correct and the document exists". Works OK with text files, and when run locally on the server with an admin a/c, but not from clients. Must be some sort of file association / launching another program from within a program issue.

Mark Salter
National Museum of Wales

[barkerscott]

Mark,

We are having the exact same issue where we get the "unable to open...", but is we are admin or logged into the desktop the image (tif) opens successfully.

Did you ever find what caused this problem?

Thanks,

Scott Barker
Alabama Gas

[inteller]

Does anyone know how to change the default.gdb location for users accessing ArcGIS Desktop 10 in Citrix? I don't want the server filling up with these default GDBs. Also, I'd like to know how to redirect this local cache folder to the user's home drive and not a folder on the citrix server. Any thoughts?

[GregoryPonto]

Does anyone know how to change the default.gdb location for users accessing ArcGIS Desktop 10 in Citrix? I don't want the server filling up with these default GDBs. Also, I'd like to know how to redirect this local cache folder to the user's home drive and not a folder on the citrix server. Any thoughts?

You can probably get what you are looking for by enabling "Special Folder Redirection," a Citrix concept will push the GDBs created for each profile back to the client (http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/i...-gransden.html). BUT....be advised that enabling "Special Folder Redirection" within Citrix results in a considerable performance loss from the client side as data that normally would be locally available to the Citrix server now has to traverse the LAN/WAN link between client and server. (Among a host of other complications).

[jeff2373]

Hi

We are currently looking to deploy ArcGIS on Citrix across our Authority. Does anybody have any experience of running ArcGIS on Citrix as opposed to Desktop clients? We are especially interested in known issues/ performance and optimum settings for improving speed, which initial testing has shown to be very slow. We will be running on a minimum version of 9.3, but possibly 10.

Any help or advise would be much appreciated!

Thanks

Hello. Esri has many, many, customer running ArcGIS Desktop on Citrix XenApp. We have a presentation we did at the last User Conference which addresses many of your questions. Please write me a jdeweese@esri.com and I can provide you with more details. Thanks.

Jeff DeWeese
Esri - Enterprise Systems Architect

[GregoryPonto]

We've recently seen a successful Citrix XenApp based ArcGIS Desktop 10.x deployment consumed on Macintosh. Some challenges to be expected, but I wanted to post the Citrix prescibed solution if it helps anyone in that area:

Citrix/XenApp + ArcGIS Desktop 10 + Macintosh Client: Configure the application not to run in "seamless" mode and lock the application to a given resolution (800x600) for example.

[GregoryPonto]

Though I earlier in this thread stated that we have experienced little to no problems in using the Citrix Deployment method for ArcGIS, there have been a few little pesky items. One of which follows:

When I thry to author and serve out a map (either through ArcServer or Publisher) using ArcGIS through the Citrix connection, the data links break and the end user (web or ArcReader) sees only the data holder in the TOC along with the broken link symbol.

Same map is then opened in ArcGIS on a local install, the data sources reset to exactly what they were before(but resetting is required), then the maps as served out (via ArcServer or Publisher) contain active links and all is well.

After researching this a bit, I did discover that when looking at the data sources for the .MXD file in ArcCatalog, the connection file found on the \Application Data\ESRI\ArcCatalog\[connection].sde path was set to where the IT folks are preserving the profile information that Citrix uses when a user is logging in. (see attached).

The data source file is shown on another computer - in this case:\\rcg-file1\appdata$\jearmstrong\Application Data\ESRI\ArcCatalog\SdeConnect@richmond_vector.sde - this is where the user profiles are being stored

Normally this connection would be "Database Connections\SdeConnect@richmond_vector.sde" which seems to resolve to C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\ESRI\ArcCatalog\Admin@richmond_vector.sde.

Is there a way to set this data connection path to allow data in a map service authored through the Citrix deployment of ArcGIS to be viewable by the end users? I realize there is a manual workaround, but that kind of defeats the purpose of running the GIS through Citrix. I hope somebody can shed some light on this issue.

thanks

James Armstrong
Richmond County, North Carolina
GIS

James -

Disable "Special Folder Redirection" (http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/i...-gransden.html)

We just resolved this exact issue with another client with this solution.

[inteller]

You can probably get what you are looking for by enabling "Special Folder Redirection," a Citrix concept will push the GDBs created for each profile back to the client (http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/i...-gransden.html). BUT....be advised that enabling "Special Folder Redirection" within Citrix results in a considerable performance loss from the client side as data that normally would be locally available to the Citrix server now has to traverse the LAN/WAN link between client and server. (Among a host of other complications).

instead of pushing them back to the client, I would like to push them to the user's "home" drive which is on the local network with the Citrix server. Does this special folder redirection accomplish that? I'd also like to redirect the cache folder to their home drive as well.

[GregoryPonto]

instead of pushing them back to the client, I would like to push them to the user's "home" drive which is on the local network with the Citrix server. Does this special folder redirection accomplish that? I'd also like to redirect the cache folder to their home drive as well.

Inteller- As this is more of a core Citrix question than an Esri question, I'll admit I am at a position of disadvantage and will certainly welcome a Citrix expert's take on this. That said, the functionality that you are looking for, in my experience, is the default behavior (Special Folder Redirection disabled.) We use local (not roaming) profiles, and as each user runs ArcMap via Citrix, the user home, user profile, etc, all are created locally on the Citrix server. I'd equate this to a Terminal Services/RDP session. You are on your own workstation, but all the processing, file referneces, home directories, etc, all exist and are utilized on the server (Citrix does tend to blur this line a bit though).

That said, I'll make a note to check on the behavior though and get back to you as soon as I can.

[salvaleonrp]

Mark/Scott,

This is not a citrix issue and should be posted in the ArcGIS Server forum.

For your convenience I'll reply here.

This was a major pain for me as well until I found an ESRI ArcGIS Server 9.3 documentation. I am working on a 931 platform but I'll continue testing this in 10 soon.

These two pages help me understand the problem better:
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisserver...tNet/index.htm
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisserver...tNet/index.htm


The answer depends a lot on where you store your imagery. We store our imagery on dedicated NAS file servers, we (domain users granted permissions in the networks shares) can definetely connect and add these data in our MXDs. However, a user local to ArcGIS server host machine (ARCGISSOC) is not a domain user. I think I read it somewhere in server documentation that it's not good practice to use a domain user as well for your web services - I'm digressing.

Back to the issue. When I publish maps from ArcMap either as MSD or just straight to the Server, the user that actually consumes these images from the web services is ARCGISSOC user (I'm not an expert but someone can confirm or debate this). ArcGISSOC local user does not have permissions on the folder shares where your images are unless you create this user with read permissions on that file server(folder) with exactly the same name as the local\ARCGISSOC user created by post installation on the ArcGIS server machine.

In our case there's no pretty solution because our IT manages these folder shares (file server where you can manage users or groups) and adding a local user is an exception.

My solution for this particular problem is
- create similar project folder structures on my desktop and the arcgis server host machine. (normally servers have a second hard drive for data - physical E drive in our case - avoid using the C drive)
- copy the images from the network share to the desktop and arcgis server host project folder
- create a local user ARCGISSOC on my desktop
- publish the MXD without any problems

This workaround is good for us because the web apps will be online for less than 3 months while the project is in progress. We really just dump the duplicate images, services and the web app afterwards.

In my opinion the best solution is to manage our own file server, create a local user id on this network share file server, then I don't have to be doing this data duplication. Another option I want to pursue is Image server for ArcGIS10. We've tried 9.2 in the past and we did not succeed.

Hope this helps.

Renato Salvaleon
Georgia Power Land Department

Mark,

We are having the exact same issue where we get the "unable to open...", but is we are admin or logged into the desktop the image (tif) opens successfully.

Did you ever find what caused this problem?

Thanks,

Scott Barker
Alabama Gas

[GregoryPonto]

If anyone is experiencing visual artifacts with ArcGIS 10.x (or prior release) on Citrix, reducing Application Color Depth to 16-bit color seems to address a number of these issues.
(Citrix Access Management Console > Farm > Application > ArcMap > Properties > Advanced > Appearance > Colors > Set to 16-bit)

Most notably, recently we found that Citrix clients running ArcGIS 10.0 / XenApp 4.x / Windows 2003 Server are unable to render the "ArcGIS Online" browser from within ArcMap. Reducing ArcMap color depth to 16-bit addresses this issue.

* The issue does not surface with ArcGIS Desktop 10.0 / XenApp 5.x / Windows 2008 Server.

I'll continue to post these "tips" as we run across them.

[jduval]

ESRI Support asked to me to test that as well. When a user used RDP to remote in, the peformance was 'normal'.

When I run Task Manager, I only see my own apps running. We only have 10 users (clients) on a 16 CPU and 12GB Ram server (new since June 2010). The CPU usage rarely goes beyond 10%, memory usage is usually around 5GB. Performance was also extremely slow when only 1 user (administrator) was logged on. I don't think we are overwhelming our Citrix server...

Thanks for your feedback! Any other suggestions to try?

Julie

I forgot to post that the performance issue I was experiencing on my setup of ArcGIS 10 running on XenApp 6.0 and Windows Server 2008 Std R2 was resolved.

When logging into Citrix, I goto the Preferences tab and then Session Settings. There is a section for 'Local resources: Use my Documents and Desktop folder' This needs to be UNCHECKED.

What was happening is that ArcMap would open and look for the default geodb on my local C: across the internet and back - which slowed ArcMap performance tremendously. This also occured when I opened any tool from ArcToolBox as it automatically points to the same default geodb (regardless if I pointed my project's default somewhere else).

Also, to note, any ArcMap 10 that I had opened/created before this issue was resolved, still pointed to my local C:. I would then have to repoint it to a citrix drive, save, and all would be well.

I hope this info saves a lot of headaches for other users out there!

Julie
Alberta, Canada

[GregoryPonto]

Since the release we've seen a number of inquiries regarding Citrix and ArcGIS Desktop 10. The most common issue we're seeing is that of remote client performance. In most instances, this type of performance problem is resolved with the following Teminal Services configuration change:

Terminal Services Configuration > ICA-tcp Properties > Client Settings
> Color Depth = Limit to 16-bits
> Redirection > Disable > Drive, Windows Printer, LPT Port, Audio, Default to main client printer
(See attached screenshot)



This configuration will prevent Citrix from accessing local data on client systems thereby eliminating the problem of large data sets streaming from client to Citrix back to client.

[ldcarto]

Hello,

We have been running ArcGIS 9.1 through Citrix for a number of years now and it has worked well and met our needs. We are now trying to upgrade to 9.3.1 and have encountered several problems every time we try testing the environment in 9.3.1. We are using ArcGIS 9.3.1 with SDE 9.3.1 in an enterprise environment. The problems we are encountering typically involve users not being able to get into ArcGIS, opening templates, loading data, etc. after we get approximately 12-15 people online at the same time. It works fine prior to that, but as soon as that many people get on, it bogs down the system and no longer allows people to get into ArcGIS. We have 35 licenses for ArcGIS and many more for Citrix, so we want to be able to allow as many people on as licenses we have available (35), but at this point with 9.3.1 that doesn't seem likely. Is there anything we can do to eliminate the connection problems?

Any assistance at all would be greatly appreciated. ;-)

Thanks,
Lisa Dygert

[ahixson]

Do the users notice a big difference when reducing it from 32-bit to 16-bit?

[jdeweese98]

Lisa,

Do you have at least SP1 for 9.3.1 installed? If not, you will need a special patch (not on the support site) that fixes memory issues for multi-user ArcGIS Desktop environments. This sounds like it may be what you are experiencing based on the description.

Jeff DeWeese
Esri

[ahixson]

Has ESRI posted any articles on how to properly optimize settings for best performance? I know there have been some posts here, but some documentation from ESRI would be wonderful.

We currently have a XenApp 6.0 Citrix Farm. We have 5 presentation servers. 4 are HP Proliant DL360 G6 servers with 12GB of Ram and two processors giving us 16 processing threads. We plan to upgrade to 24 GB of Ram very soon. All four servers run ArcMap 9.3.1 with SP2

my email is aaron@hixsonfamily.net- fyi

We also have a Virtual Machien presentation server hosting ArcMap 10 so that our end users can get their feet wet with the new version of ArcMap. We plan to upgrade the entire envionrment to ArcMap 10 sometime this summer.

[gwalt_blm]

A Best Practices doc would be invaluable. We are using ArcGIS 9.3.1 on XenApp6. Our users make use of My Network Places for UNC pathing, but on the XenApp6 build ArcCatalog doesn't see the My Network Places mappings.

[jgravois]

Hi All,
We just diagnosed an issue in ArcGIS 10.0 in which labels appear blurry when raster imagery is also present in the map. It seems that the lossy compression policy in place in the Citrix Delivery Service Console (XenApp 6) was causing the issue.

Blurriness is apparent in ArcGIS when the default "medium" setting is applied across the Citrix server. It improves somewhat when setting compression to "low", and is corrected completely when set to "none". Of course, additional compression preserves bandwidth, so network traffic should also be taken into consideration when applying settings.

[bjrichardson]

We are having this problem with XenApp 5.5/Win2003/ArcGIS 10 and we have set it to 16-bit. So that does not seem to solve the issue. Any other ideas?

If anyone is experiencing visual artifacts with ArcGIS 10.x (or prior release) on Citrix, reducing Application Color Depth to 16-bit color seems to address a number of these issues.
(Citrix Access Management Console > Farm > Application > ArcMap > Properties > Advanced > Appearance > Colors > Set to 16-bit)

Most notably, recently we found that Citrix clients running ArcGIS 10.0 / XenApp 4.x / Windows 2003 Server are unable to render the "ArcGIS Online" browser from within ArcMap. Reducing ArcMap color depth to 16-bit addresses this issue.

* The issue does not surface with ArcGIS Desktop 10.0 / XenApp 5.x / Windows 2008 Server.

I'll continue to post these "tips" as we run across them.

[danjc]

We're having performance issues with our Citrix ArcGIS Desktop environment after upgrading to ArcGIS v10. Here's our setup:

Our IT group has mapped the following directory for all users in their profile:

\\<user's office>\Userdata\

is mapped to...

F:\

Each user's "Documents" folder is set to:

F:\users\<username>\

Therefore, the Default Geodatabase Location is located on their office server and is:

F:\users\<username>\ArcGIS\Default.gdb

Our Citrix server is located in a different office than most of the users' client machines.

Were noticing that it's taking 25-45 seconds every time a user clicks the "Add Data" button just to bring up the dialog window. Presumably, this is because ArcMap is needing to connect to the user's home office to enumerate their Default Geodatabase Location. I imagine other tools are slow as well, but haven't tested extensively. I tried taking an existing MXD, changing the DGL to a folder local to the Citrix server, then saving the MXD, closing and re-opening ArcMap, opening the same MXD, and testing the Add Data button. It performed the same (~ 30 second to bring up the dialog). I'd like to know why this is still slow.

One workaround we found is to expose Windows Explorer on the Citrix server to each user. If they launch this Windows Explorer application, then Disconnect the F drive and leave their Windows Explorer session open, then open ArcMap, the Add Data window comes up immediately (< 2 seconds). This is a big improvement, but it's less than ideal for a workaround. I'd like to know what other settings/configuration are in ArcGIS that are pointing to my F drive. Any ideas?

I noticed some posts in this thread about "Special Folder Redirection". I verified that the "Use My Documents and Desktop folders" option is disabled.

Finally, we've noticed that we have the same behavior outside of Citrix. If users take their laptop and work in a different office, they notice the same slowness until they disconnect their F drive.

I called ESRI tech support about this issue today. They said that the DGL and Home directories were functions aimed at making GIS more user-friendly for novice users. I would argue they should recognize that their customer base is not primarily novice users and make these functions optional for most of us who suffer as a result. If you agree, you should vote on the following suggestions on the Ideas site:

Change Default Geodatabase Location

Change Default Home Folder

[jgravois]

Hi Dan,

While you have already ensured that the Citrix server does not use Special Folder Redirection to write files to the client machine itself, a Windows policy which allows content to be stored on another server in the same satellite office is going to cause the same performance issues in ArcMap.

It would certainly be nice if you could change a setting in our application to modify the default location of the geodatabase, but centralized file management is one of the principal benefits of a Citrix system and this benefit is undermined when you store user profiles on a machine which utilizes a WAN connection to communicate with your Citrix server.

[danjc]

FYI, I worked with a rep from ESRI to replicate my issue above. They have created the following NIMS:

• NIM073486: Add Data takes a long time to initialize when the My Documents folder is redirected to a network location.
• NIM073492: Opening a new or existing document takes a long time when My Documents folder is redirected to a Network Location.

Further, they said: "We understand that this issue is impacting performance in several areas and will do our best to address it in an upcoming service pack or release."

[kmayall]

I thought it was worth noting in this thread a reference to this new article:

FAQ: What are the requirements for ArcGIS Desktop support on Citrix?
http://support.esri.com/en/knowledge...s/detail/39489

[Richmondgis]

We have been really enjoying the convienance that a Citrix deployment offers. An issue has pooped up though with the new add-in manager for adding in tools. the path ( and therefore the tools) used to add the tools does not seem to be perserved from on session to another. Each time the tool has to be added anew. While this is not a critical issue, it is a bit annoying. Im sure it is a citrix issue, and our IT folks are working to correct it, but if anyone else has seen and resolved this issue, please share.

thanks

[jdeweese98]

Hello,

My understanding is that add-ins are stored in the user profile in c:\users\<user>\Documents\ArcGIS\AddIns\Desktop10.0\<GUID>

Perhaps the profiles are currently setup where this information is not being retained once the user logs out so probably need to check with the adminstrator as to how profiles are configured and determine if the profile is getting cleared for some reason or there are write permissions issues.

Here is some additional information, for example, creating a well known location for multiple users to share: http://help.arcgis.com/en/sdk/10.0/a...00004n7000000/

Jeff DeWeese
Esri - Sr. Technical Architect

[jdeweese98]

All - FYI, there is a new Esri Citrix Best Practices technical article available:http://support.esri.com/en/knowledge...s/detail/39490

It supercedes the 39489 article and contains additional content as wel....

Jeff DeWeese
Esri - Sr. Technical Architect

[saraemani]

I thought it was worth noting in this thread a reference to this new article:

FAQ: What are the requirements for ArcGIS Desktop support on Citrix?
http://support.esri.com/en/knowledge...s/detail/39489

we have the same problem. The folder path is not persisting in the Addin manager. were you able to solve it.

[dananrg]

Does Esri have plans to offer ArcGIS for Desktop via Software As A Service (SaaS)? Preferably coupled with a metered / utility licensing model. Pay only for what you use. That's when you unlock the full potential of the Cloud. Seems like many customers struggle to deploy ArcGIS Desktop via Citrix. Might be nice to leap-frog and outsource config and maintenance to someone with that specific expertise.

I created an entry for this on ideas.arcgis.com--a feedback channel more customers should participate in:

http://ideas.arcgis.com/ideaView?id=08730000000bx0DAAQ

I'm still puzzled when I learn various GIS colleagues don't know about ideas.arcgis.com. It's a powerful tool for influencing Esri's Product Roadmap. The ability of the Ideas site to shape products that fit customer needs rises in proportion to the number of people using it. So use it. What a neat thing to be able to quantify customer interest for various features and then apportion developer resources appropriately. Because those resources are finite. Or discover and implement a cool customer Idea even if its ranked popularity isn't high--just because it's something that Just Makes Sense to do or is The Right Thing To Do for customers.

[bpouteau]

We're running ArcMap 9.3 on XenApp and have been having issues with licenses not being checked back in by the 10 License Manager when Arcmap closses. I've set the timeout variable but it hasn't solved the problem. I'm guessing it's because these licenses are "inactive' as opposed to "hung". I've been trying to determine the sequence of events that causes this to happen (i.e. user closes Citrix without closing ArcMap first) but so far there doesn't seem to be any pattern.

Has anyone else been having similar problems?

Bart

[jcbrewster]

Any updates to this issue with 10.1? Has it improved or pretty much the same?

[nannasin28]

I find it slow on editing and the help menu has issues .