Question : Problem: Load balancing and Citrix

First let me start by saying that I have only limited experience with Terminal Services and no experience with load balancing or Citrix.

I have two Windows 2003 Terminal Servers that about 20 users connect to. They manually choose which server to use by selecting it in the remote desktop app. Both servers are identical and they will switch back and forth if they feel it is getting slow. Generally speaking at what point should I consider load balancing and should Citrix be considered as well. If load balancing and Citrix were to be used would I only need to add one server?

I have done some reading in the past about this but most of what I have found was geared towards larger scale operations and it didn't seem to apply to me so I am unsure of what I should be considering.

Answer : Problem: Load balancing and Citrix

Citrix will probably help you but a lot will depend on how you are set up and what applications you are using.  Is this on a WAN?  Are your users coming in via a VPN?  What applications are they running, etc.

With just 20 users you most likely will not need to add a server, you would just install citrix on the two terminal servers.  However I would imagine the best practice would be to rebuild those, add citrix, and then reinstall your applications.

Citrix load balancing is fairly basic but it could definitely help with your situation of users just randomly guessing which server they should log into.  You can have it forward the user to whichever server has the less load, CPU usage, etc.  You can also have it send users with a certain IP range to one server over another, say you have one set of users with a slower connection.  You can also limit bandwidth on printing or audio and a few things like that.  Once again with 20 users with a few tweaks you should be running smoother.  But keep in mind if you have bad connectivity citrix isn't necessarily going to solve those issues.

The things you will have to look at are the cost of the 20 licenses (about $250 per license for Advanced) and the first time you install and implement citrix it will be some work.

I am sure others will chime in but that is some basic info for you.