Memory Usage of SwyxIt! on Windows Terminalserver

Summary:

The memory usage of SwyxIt! has increased since version 6.10. This increase is of particular importance in a terminal server environment.

This article describes the changes of the memory usage of the SwyxIt! in a terminal server environment.

Information:

Every instance of SwyxIt! 6.02 uses approx.15 MByte physical memory on a Windows Server 2003 terminal server. Although the taskmanager shows a higher value to the user (30 MByte for CLMgr.exe and SwyxIt!.exe) this is not relevant for the physical memory usage on the terminal server. Half of the memory is shared memory.

This physical memory usage increased since SwyxIt! version 6.10.
In SwyxIt! v6.11 the physical memory usage on the Windows Server 2003 terminal server increased to approx. 60 MByte. The taskmanager of the SwyxIt! user shows a higher value (approx. 120 MByte for CLMgr.exe and SwyxIt!.exe) that is not relevant for the terminal server.

SwyxIt! v6.12 or later uses also approx. 60 MByte physical memory on the Windows Server 2003 terminal server. But new since this versions is now, that no higher value is shown in the taskmanager of a user for CLMgr.exe and SwyxIt!.exe.

SwyxIt! v6.20 consumes less physical memory, approx. 42 MB on the Windows Server 2003 terminal server. Here is also no higher value shown for CLMgr.exe and SwyxIt!.exe.

With the SwyxIt! Productivity Pack (v6.25) the usage again shrinks to approx. 37 MB physical memory of theWindows Server 2003 terminal server.
On Windows Server 2008 R2 with Remote Services our test results show an amount of aprox. 88 MB physical memory for SwyxIt! 6.25.

SwyxIt! v7.00 shows a test result of approx. 88 MB physical memory on Windows Server 2008 R2 with Remote Services.

SwyxIt! v7.05 shows a test result of approx. 93 MB physical memory on Windows Server 2008 R2 with Remote Services.

SwyxIt! 2011 shows a test result of approx. 98 MB physical memory on Windows Server 2008 R2 with Remote Services.

SwyxIt! 2011 R2 shows a test result of approx. 98 MB physical memory on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with Remote Services.

32 bit operatingsystem:
Please note, that you can address maximal 4 GB memory when using a 32 bit operatingsystem. Beside SwyxIt! a customer would usally also use other applications - all together can not exceed the 4 GB barrier.

If the RAM and CPU resources of a single terminalserver are not enough because of the number of users and used applications, a solution could be to use multiple terminalservers.

64 bit operatingsystem:
According to Microsoft it is possible to address up to 32 GB RAM when using e.g. Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard x64. Hence it should be possible to use SwyxIt! and other applications even for a bigger quantity of users per terminalserver.

Since version 6.12 of SwyxIt! and SwyxFax Client support the use on 64 bit operatingsystems.

Therefore Swyx recommends for new terminalserver installations in the future the use of Windows Server 2008 R2 (only as 64 bit availaible) as operating system if many users should work on the terminalserver with SwyxIt! and additional applications.
In this case you should consider if also all other applications of the endcustomer are already ready to run on a 64 bit terminalserver operatingsystem.

Beside the very lare possible memory another bottleneck could be of course also the CPU resources, here especially the requirements of the other applications beside SwyxIt! play a major role. Therefore it is in general a good idea to use multi-CPU / multi-core systems, but if the CPU requirements are very high it might also be reasonable to use multiple terminal servers.

General hints:
To keep the memory usage low, especially in a terminalserver environment, you should not use skins that make use of the SwyxIt! WebExtension. This function otherwise might increase the memory usage additional in a mentionable way.

To keep the CPU- and network-load, especially in a terminalserver environment, you should consider in general to use a simple skin without any animations and without many speeddials with statussignalling. Each change in the graphic add some CPU-load on the terminalserver and generates some networktraffic towards the terminalclient.