SAP GUI on Citrix.

[Former Member]

Hello All,

We give access to SAP ERP system to users with SAP GUI presented on Citrix ICA client. Users are reporting problems with Intermittent session freezes. Eg: Response is Bursty. When you type a line, or a number, you will not see any thing on the screen, but in few seconds all appears suddenly.

Box Citrix servers and SAP Servers or on same data centre, and all other applications work normally and connectivity between several hundred other application servers is good.

a.) When I try to use SAP GUI FAT client (7.10, SP14) from my PC or other PCs it is working fine with no problem. We have same SAP GUI Patch level on the Citrix servers.

b) ICA Client version installed is latest.

c) Windows XP PCs are installed with SP3.

d) End users are across different locations (not in different countries), with 2 MB, 10 MB WAN connection or ADSL connection.

e) What ever location, generally according to tests, FAT GUI is working fine.

We have followed SAP Note 431163, searched other forums on Citrix Site, and verified that WAN connections are generally ok, performed NI Ping tests, but did not find any problems with WAN.

Any body, have reasonable good ideas or if you have resolved similar issues?

Credible replies are very welcome and no one line answers like u201CInvolve Network Guysu201D, u201CThis is not Basis Issueu201D or u201CTalk to Citrix Teamu201D. We have been trying to resolve this for months, but could not find core problem.

[markus_doehr2]

> We give access to SAP ERP system to users with SAP GUI presented on Citrix ICA client. Users are reporting problems with Intermittent session freezes. Eg: Response is Bursty. When you type a line, or a number, you will not see any thing on the screen, but in few seconds all appears suddenly.

We see this intermittently in all applications, not only in SAPGUI (Word, Outlook...). The cause at our side is a latency of remote locations and a lot of network hops until the packages reach the Citrix server. The more infrastructure is between (a physical device) the more latency issues can occur.

Markus

[Former Member]

Markus/Eric

What you say does make real sense, Latency. Is there any way this problem can go away complete? What I am trying to establish is weather there is any latency between Citrix Servers and SAP Infrastruture or WAN connection? If WAN connection is cause for the latency, why should SAP GUI session work normally?. And did you manage to resolve or improve the situation?

Again, If Citrix and SAP Servers are on SAP data centre, there should not be any latency correct?

@ Eric, I doubt SAP GUI SP15 may help, but will try.

Regards,

Krishna

[markus_doehr2]

> What you say does make real sense, Latency. Is there any way this problem can go away complete?

No.

> What I am trying to establish is weather there is any latency between Citrix Servers and SAP Infrastruture or WAN connection? If WAN connection is cause for the latency, why should SAP GUI session work normally?.

Because a SAPGUI doesn't request a data stream as Citrix does. SAPGUI sends on (or a few) packets over the line and waits for the answer from the server. Citrix needs a constant data stream (e. g. moving the mouse must be sent over the line etc.). Citrix is very sensitive for latency. The more physical devices are in between the higher is the latency. On top come things like deep inspection firewalls, routing etc. which all "stop" the traffic, look into the packets and then forward them to the next hop.

The situation becomes worse if you use e. g. VPNs to connect your locations over the public internet. Here the routing can become asynchronous and there's no reliable connection speed.

> And did you manage to resolve or improve the situation?

No. Since this is a physical restriction there's not much one can do. We meanwhile installed the SAPGUIs locally (and patch them locally using software distribution).

> Again, If Citrix and SAP Servers are on SAP data centre, there should not be any latency correct?

The latency is between the citrix client and the citrix server, not between the SAPGUI and the application server you connect.

Markus

[Former Member]

Hello Markus or any body else,

Do you know/experience the GUI session disconnection on Citrix while running some transaction? This also happens randomly. In many cases when disconnection happened, I observe in STAD report for corresponding user, atleast once or twice that specific user might have had experienced longer GUI time and/or Rollin/Rollout time.

This expereince is in many cases although may not be true 100%

Any suggestions?

Krishna

[markus_doehr2]

> Do you know/experience the GUI session disconnection on Citrix while running some transaction?

Disconnecting with which error? Syslog (SM21)?

Markus

[Former Member]

Markus,

In SM21 logs, error for each disconnection is

Error1 :

Operating system call recv failed (error no. 10054)

nixxi.cp 4424 recv10054 NiIRead recv

The specified operating system call was returned with an error.

For communication calls (receive, send, etc) often the cause of error

are network problems.

It could also be a configuration problem at operating system level.

(file cannot be opened, no space in the file system etc.).

Additional specifications for error number 10054

Name for errno number WSAECONNRESET

No documentation available for error WSAECONNRESET

35 443340 m Error (Function,Module,Row) Q0 I recv10054 NiIReadrecv nixxi.cp4424

error2:

Q0 4 Connection to user 20506 (USERXX ), terminal 121 (Hostnamexx ) lost

The SAP Dispatcher (part of the application server) has lost the

connection to a terminal process. For example, this happens when the

terminal program (GUI) terminates without correctly logging off the

application server. More detailed information about the error

context is not available here.

We have performed several verifications to find the cause of the

problem and following notes, 155147, 500235, 107407, 26086 and 67098.

Following the note 107407, which appears to be more relavent, I have

performed few NIPING tests and did not experience hard error while

testing and following are results.

niping -c -H <server> -L 360 - D 1000

I received following o/p

avg : 1.566ms

max : 4.835ms

min : 0.945ms

tr : 1247.582kb/s

excluding max min:

av2 1.558ms

tr2 1253.507ms

with test from differet location (WAN)

niping -c -H <serverIP> -L 3600 -D 1000

Result:

Nov 10 2:36:44

connect to server ok

Nov 10 03:37:41

Send and receive 3600 messages (len 1000)

-

---

times---

avg 19.749 ms

Max 628.872 ms

min 19.117 ms

tr 98.899 Kb/s

excluding max and min

av2 19.580 ms

tr2 99.553 Kb/s

and accoding to note, 107407 if avg and min are significatly lower than

Max there can be a problem. But details are not explained.

Input will be very useful.

Regards,

Krishna

[markus_doehr2]

> avg 19.749 ms

> Max 628.872 ms

> min 19.117 ms

> tr 98.899 Kb/s

> excluding max and min

> av2 19.580 ms

> tr2 99.553 Kb/s

>

> and accoding to note, 107407 if avg and min are significatly lower than

> Max there can be a problem. But details are not explained.

360 loops need a max. of 628 seconds (which is > 10 minutes) and 19 seconds avg.

To me it seems you have a serious network issue (lots of retransmits were necessary). You can also check that on the machine you executed the ping with "netstat -s" (if it's Windows).

I would seriously check the network between source and destination, it seems you have a huge packet loss. Even the 19 seconds for 360 trips appears very high in my eyes.

Markus

[Former Member]

Hi Markus,

Thanks again for keeping interest on this, but I have given two examples one with 360 messages and another one with 3600

It looks like you have matched results of 360 messages to max of 628ms?

Regards,

Krishna

[markus_doehr2]

You're right - I mixed that up - sorry for confusion.

Can you create now the same nipings with a PC on the same physical network as the SAP system?

Markus

[Former Member]

Hi Markus,

Following the results from the test performed on server with in the same data centre. ie. Niping aganist Prod server from another server in the landscape.

niping -c -H <ServerIP> -L 3600 -D 1000

Wed Nov 11 10:44:20 2009

Connect to server ok

Wed Nov 11:44:20 2009

send and receive 3600 messages (len 1000)

-

---

times----

avg 0.587 ms

Max 15.800 ms

min 0.390 ms

tr 3325.668 KB/s

Excluding Max and Min:

av2 0.583 ms

tr2 3349.469 kB/s

Any comment?

[Former Member]

On WAN connection at different location following are the results.

niping -c -H <ServerIP> -L 3600 -D 1000

Wed Nov 11 11:59:38 2009

connect to server ok.

Wed Nov 13:02:02 2009

send and receive 3600 messages (len 1000)

-

---

times------

avg 40.876 ms

Max 1212.124 ms

Min 21.851 ms

tr 47.782 Kb/s

Excluding Max and min:

av2 40.555 ms

tr2 48.159 Kb/S

[Former Member]

After analysing this problem for months, my observation is

1. Citrix session freezes as soon as network bandwidth utilisation increases

2. Our oragnisation got multiple offices in different cities with users from one or two in small office and about 30 users in bigger office and user do move ( need not be SAP users) and they map to network drives and printers across offices on WAN link which slows causes some bandwidth usage. If SAP user on Citrix got above situation, Session freezing occurs.

3. Other obvious things include, Local LAN traffic, PC speed etc.

[former_member204746]

I'm sorry, but I have to answer:

Please talk to Citrix Team.

I'm serious, Ask your Citrix team to check if they see some kind of latency when using SAPGUI on Citrix.

Have you installed latest SAPGUI patch? Patch 15 has been released.

[former_member204746]

SAPGUI has a lot of screen updates. So, Citrix must send all of them over the network. SAPGUI is much more efficient when installed locally on a PC.

So, you must involve your Citrix folks and ask them if the y can speed this up. This is not a BASIS issue after all.