Background Processor On Citrix Server?

[PeteCresswell]

I tried to post something like this to alt.os.citirix, but Google
seems to have swallowed it up.

On second thought, however, it seems more appropriate here.


I've got an app that does some fairly heinous processing after the
user does something called "updating the reference rate indexes".
Basically it has to compute a new daily yield and payment accrual for
every security held for every day of new index rates.

There are also a couple of similar situations where the user changes
some security property that affects yields/index rates and the app has
to recompute them from day 1 for that security.

Right now, it's "go-get-a-cup-of-coffee" for the luck trader that
updates index rates.

What I'm thinking about is some sort of invisible user on the Citrix
box that always has the application open and is constantly looking for
the presence of a semaphore file. Once it sees the semaphore, it
performs the lengthy process in question.

Am I on the right track with this?

 

[Arvin Meyer [MVP]]

You might try this, but if you leave a machine/user open, there are security
ramifications.

I've always found that intensive processing can usually be done by:

1. Making sure you have and are using appropriate indexes.
2. Processing only those records that require it.

I have an application that imports over a half million records from a dBase
app, then rewrites them to an Access table and performs calculations using
33 queries while creating 3 subtables, the last of which is the output to
the report.

The entire process, including the report takes about 35 seconds. The report
can be rerun in under a second. I don't think that your "intensive
processing" can be any worse than that.