User Logon Performance - Cloud Test

The Logon Performance By Delivery Groups - Cloud test monitors the user logon process from a delivery group perspective; in other words, it monitors user logins to the desktops/applications in a delivery group, measures the ‘aggregate’ duration of the login across all users to that group, and thus points to bottlenecks in the user logon process to that group.

The User Logon Performance - Cloud test on the other hand, provides the user-perspective to logon monitoring. In other words, this test tracks each user who logs into a desktop or accesses an application via the controller, reports in real-time the logon experience of that user, and pinpoints where exactly that user’s logon slowed down. When a user complaints of delays in accessing his/her virtual desktop, this test will lead administrators straight to what is causing the delay. Detailed diagnostics provided by this test reveal which machines/applications a user is accessing and which delivery group these machines/applications belong to.

Note:

This test will report metrics only if the Citrix Profile Management and Citrix Profile Management WMI Plugin features are enabled while installing the Citrix VDA as shown in the following illustration.

Target of the test : A controller in Citrix Cloud Control Plane

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each user to the controller in the Citrix Cloud Control Plane

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed.
Host	The IP address of the host for which this test is to be configured.
Port	Refers to the port at which the specified host listens to.
Customer ID	When configuring the Citrix Cloud service, you should have created an API client on the cloud, so that any external program can communicate with the cloud. This API client is tied to a customer ID. The Citrix Cloud API requires this customer ID, when calling REST APIs. To determine the customer ID that is mapped to the API client you created, refer to Determining the Customer ID Mapped to an API Client.
Secure Client File Path	When creating the API client on the cloud, you will be provided with an ID and a Secret for your client. Downloading this information saves a file named secureclient.csv. The eG agent uses the ID and Secret stored in this file to connect to the Citrix Cloud API. This is why, you will have to configure the Citrix Cloud Connectivity test with the full path to the secureclient.csv. Note: Before specifying the path of the secureclient.csv file, make sure that the API client is created and this file downloaded by a valid Citrix cloud user with Read-only administrator rights to virtual apps/desktops. To know how to create this user on the cloud, refer to theCreating a New Citrix Cloud User for Monitoring PurposestopicTo know how this user can create an API client on the cloud, refer to Creating API Client on the Citrix Cloud.
Proxy Host and Proxy Port	If the Citrix Cloud Connector communicates with the Citrix Cloud via a proxy, then, you also need to configure the eG agent on the connector with the proxy server details. This will enable the eG agent to connect to the Citrix cloud without a glitch, and pull metrics. To facilitate this communication. do the following: Specify the IP address/fully-qualified host name of the proxy server, against PROXY HOST. Specify the port at which the Proxy server listens for requests from the eG agent, against PROXY PORT. By default, both these parameters are set to none, indicating that the eG agent does not communicate with the Citrix Cloud via a proxy. Note: Before configuring these test parameters, make sure that the proxy server settings are imported to the eG agent side from the connector. To know how to achieve this, refer to Configuring the eG Agent with Proxy Server Settings. To know what values you should configure these parameters with, do the following: Login to the system hosting the Citrix Cloud Connector being monitored. Open the Internet Explorer browser on that system, and click on the icon provided at the right corner of that browser. Clicking the icon will invoke a menu. Choose Internet Optionsfrom the menu. Then, select the Connections tab in the Internet Options window that appears. Now, click the LAN Settings button. This will open the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings window. In the Proxy Server section of this window, you will find that the Use a proxy server for your LAN check box is enabled. Configure the PROXY HOST and PROXY PORT parameters with the IP address and port numbers displayed in the Address and Port text boxes (respectively) under that check box. If the Use a proxy server for your LAN check box is not enabled, then it means that the connector is not communicating with the cloud via a proxy. In this case, you need not change the default configuration for these parameters.
Region Endpoint	By default, US is chosen from this list indicating that this test will report metrics for those organizations whose users and resources are located in the United States region. Sometimes, the eG agent may collect the required metrics with a minor time delay due to the users and resources being monitored are in a different region. To avoid such time delays and to ensure end-user proximity and offer the best user experience, administrators are allowed to change the region based on where most of the users and resources are located. For instance, if the users and resources are located in the Asia-Pacific South region or approximately nearer to the Asia-Pacific South region, then, administrators need to choose 'AP-S' from this list. However, from this list, administrators are required to choose only the region that they had chosen when they signed in for the first time after onboarding their organization to the target Citrix Cloud.
Report Summary	By default, this flag is set to Yes indicating that this test will report metrics for the Summary descriptor, by default. However, if you do not want this test report the metrics for the Summary descriptor, then st this flag to No.
Detailed Diagnosis	To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option. The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled: The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
User logons	Indicates the number of times this user has logged in since the last measurement period	Number
Average logon duration	Indicates the average time taken for this user to login to desktops/access applications.	Secs	If this measure reports a high value consistently, it could indicate a slowdown in the logon process. Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user’s logon is taking the longest.
Brokering duration	Indicates time taken by this user to complete the process of brokering sessions.	Secs	A high value indicates that brokering is taking a long time. If the Average logon duration is very high, you may want to compare the value of this measure with that of the Time taken for starting VM, HDX connection duration, Authentication time, GPOs duration, Logon scripts duration, Profile load time, and Interactive session duration measures to know where exactly the user logon process slowed down – is it during authentication? Is it during brokering? Is it when establishing the HDX connection? Is it when applying GPOs? Is it during logon scripts execution? Is it while loading user profiles? Is it when starting the VM? Or is it when handing over control to the user?
VM start duration	Indicates the time taken by the controller to start the machines accessed by this user.	Secs	A high value indicates that machines are taking too long to startup. If the Average logon duration is very high, you may want to compare the value of this measure with that of the Brokering duration, HDX connection duration, Authentication time, GPOs duration, Logon scripts duration, Profile load time, and Interactive session duration measures to know where exactly the user logon process slowed down – is it during authentication? Is it during brokering? Is it when establishing the HDX connection? Is it when applying GPOs? Is it during logon scripts execution? Is it while loading user profiles? Is it when starting the VM? Or is it when handing over control to the user?
HDX connection duration	Indicates the time taken by the controller to complete the steps required for setting up the HDX connection from this user to the machines accessed by the user.	Secs	A high value indicates that HDX connections are taking time to be established. If the Average logon duration is very high, you may want to compare the value of this measure with that of the Brokering duration, Time taken for starting VM, Authentication time, GPOs duration, Logon scripts duration, Profile load time, and Interactive session duration measures to know where exactly the user logon process slowed down – is it during authentication? Is it during brokering? Is it when establishing the HDX connection? Is it when applying GPOs? Is it during logon scripts execution? Is it while loading user profiles? Is it when starting the VM? Or is it when handing over control to the user?
Authentication duration	Indicates the time taken by the controller to authenticate this user’s sessions.	Secs	A high value indicates authentication delays. If the Average logon duration is very high, you may want to compare the value of this measure with that of the Brokering duration, Time taken for starting VM, HDX connection duration, GPOs duration, Logon scripts duration, Profile load time, and Interactive session duration measures to know where exactly the user logon process slowed down – is it during authentication? Is it during brokering? Is it when establishing the HDX connection? Is it when applying GPOs? Is it during logon scripts execution? Is it while loading user profiles? Is it when starting the VM? Or is it when handing over control to the user?
GPOs duration	Indicates the time taken to apply group policy settings on the machines accessed by this user.	Secs	A high value indicates that GPO application is taking time. If the Average logon duration is very high, you may want to compare the value of this measure with that of the Brokering duration, Time taken for starting VM, HDX connection duration, Authentication time, Logon scripts duration, Profile load time, and Interactive session duration measures to know where exactly the user logon process slowed down – is it during authentication? Is it during brokering? Is it when establishing the HDX connection? Is it when applying GPOs? Is it during logon scripts execution? Is it while loading user profiles? Is it when starting the VM? Or is it when handing over control to the user?
Logon scripts duration	Indicates the time taken for logon scripts to be executed on the machines accessed by this user.	Secs	A high value indicates that logon script execution is taking time. If the Average logon duration is very high, you may want to compare the value of this measure with that of the Brokering duration, Time taken for starting VM, HDX connection duration, Authentication time, GPOs duration, Profile load time, and Interactive session duration measures to know where exactly the user logon process slowed down – is it during authentication? Is it during brokering? Is it when establishing the HDX connection? Is it when applying GPOs? Is it during logon scripts execution? Is it while loading user profiles? Is it when starting the VM? Or is it when handing over control to the user?
Citrix profile load duration	Indicates the time taken by the logon process to load the profile of this user.	Secs	A high value indicates that profiles are taking too long to load. If the Average logon duration is very high, you may want to compare the value of this measure with that of the Brokering duration, Time taken for starting VM, HDX connection duration, Authentication time, GPOs duration, Logon scripts duration, and Interactive session duration measures to know where exactly the user logon process slowed down – is it during authentication? Is it during brokering? Is it when establishing the HDX connection? Is it when applying GPOs? Is it during logon scripts execution? Is it while loading user profiles? Is it when starting the VM? Or is it when handing over control to the user?
Interactive session duration	Indicates the time taken by the logon process to handoff keyboard and mouse control to this user.	Secs	A high value indicates delays in handing off keyboard and mouse control to users. If the Average logon duration is very high, you may want to compare the value of this measure with that of the Brokering duration, Time taken for starting VM, HDX connection duration, Authentication time, GPOs duration, Logon scripts duration, and Profile load time measures to know where exactly the user logon process slowed down – is it during authentication? Is it during brokering? Is it when establishing the HDX connection? Is it when applying GPOs? Is it during logon scripts execution? Is it while loading user profiles? Is it when starting the VM? Or is it when handing over control to the user?
Pre-user initialization duration	Indicates the time overlaps with Group Policy Objects and logon scripts (configured through GPO).	Seconds	If the value of this measure is high, administrators should consider optimizing the Group Policy Objects and logon scripts configured through GPO.
User initialization duration	Indicates the time taken for executing userinit.exe for this user.	Seconds	When a user logs on to a Windows machine, Winlogon runs userinit.exe which runs logon scripts, re-establishes network connections, and then starts Explorer.exe, and the Windows user interface. If Average logon duration is abnormally high, then compare the value of this measure with the other time measurements to determine whether/not the logon delay can be attributed to slowness in the completion of user initialization tasks. A high value of this measure could indicate that the machine is not able to reach domain controller a network issue or a large number of logon scripts (corrupt) are configured through active directory user object. To resolve the issue, the administrators should immediately initiate the investigation before it causes serious impact on the logon process.
Shell duration	Indicates the duration between the initialization of the user interface to the time the user receives keyboard and mouse control.	Seconds	A high value of this measure could indicate that the VDA is heavily loaded with numerous applications running or if desktop has too many icons, etc.
Delay duration	Indicates the cumulative time delay between the Pre-userinit and Userinit phases.	Seconds
Other processing duration	Indicates the time taken by this user to perform processes other than logon related processes.	Seconds	The value of this measure is calculated as follows: Average logon duration - (sum of Brokering duration, VM start duration, HDX connection duration, Authentication duration, GPOs duration , Logon scripts duration, Citrix profile load duration and Interactive session duration measures)