How many simultaneous connections does ZENworks Imaging Support?

  • 3791392
  • 03-Jan-2007
  • 30-Apr-2012

Environment

Novell ZENworks 7 Desktop Management - ZDM7 Imaging
Novell ZENworks 6.5 Desktop Management - ZfD6.5
Novell ZENworks for Desktops 4.0.1 - ZfD4.0.1
Novell ZENworks for Desktops 3.2
Novell ZENworks Imaging
Novell ZENworks 11 Configuration Management Imaging
Novell ZENworks 11 Configuration Management Support Pack 1 - ZCM 11 SP1 Imaging
Novell ZENworks 10 Configuration Management Imaging
Novell ZENworks 7.3 Linux Management - ZLM7.3

Situation

How many simultaneous connections does ZENworks Imaging Support?

Resolution

ZENworks Imaging supports 32 simultaneous connections - this includes all client requests, which may involve the client querying for work to do. This means that the theoretical maximum number of simultaneous imaging operations is 32, but depending on requests that are being made by other workstations, this number may not be reached.

Additional Information

Formerly known as TID# 10098430
If the limit of 32 concurrent connections is reached, the server will refuse any new connections. As soon as an existing connection terminates, a new one will be allowed.
This is a hard limit and there are no settings to modify this.

The connection limit is for any connection to imgserv/pbserv which includes queries for work, unicast images, reporting results of attempted work, etc. It applies to starting multicast sessions, but not the multicast sessions themselves.

The same limit exists in all versions of imaging.

This 32 connection limit exists because the TCP/IP stack requires the imaging engine to declare a maximum number of allowed concurrent connections.

Novell, however, has successfully scaled past 50 simultaneous unicast sessions in their lab using a Windows and NetWare imaging backend. The problem one runs into when running this is overloading the tftp server. As more clients start downloading the linux files, the download process becomes longer.