User Profile Management - OS Test
User logon is a complex and resource intensive process in a VDI environment, and is a key determinant of the quality of a user's experience with the VDI service. This process is initiated when a desktop broker's load balancing algorithm selects the virtual desktop where a published application or desktop, which a user has selected, will be started and ends when the application or desktop is running and the user is able to interact with it.
Delays in the user logon process can therefore serve as key spoilers of a user's experience with the desktop service, causing significant loss of revenue and reputation in mission-critical VDI environments.
One of the common causes for delays in user logons is a delay in the loading of user profiles. To reduce the time taken to load profiles and thus minimize the user logon time, VDI environments where user connections are brokered through the Citrix XenDesktop Broker, use the Citrix Profile Management solution. Citrix Profile Management is a profile type that supersedes all other profiles for the user.
During logon, the Profile management service manages the user settings in a user profile. This service helps minimize the user logon time by enabling administrators to exclude (and include) certain files and folders in order to prevent extraneous settings from needlessly being copied with the profile. For example, some applications may create folders and files that account for tens or hundreds of megabytes—data that is really not required. By excluding these items, the profile is thus smaller, and smaller profiles load faster. Alternatively, you could elect to only include specific files and folders, thus keeping to a minimum the amount of profile data being managed within the user‘s profile.
Also, upon logoff, the Profile management service merges back only changed user settings to the centrally stored user settings (user‘s store).
In environments where the Citrix Profile Management service is utilized therefore, the user experience with the VDI service greatly depends upon how efficient the service is.
To ascertain the efficiency of the Citrix Profile Management service, VDI administrators may have to periodically track the logon/logoff duration and profile size of each user to the virtual desktops operating on a target virtual host. Doing so will enable these administrators to determine whether/not the Profile management service has succeeded in minimizing both user logon times and profile sizes. The User Profile Management - Guest test helps administrators perform this check at pre-configured intervals. The 'per-user' performance results reported by this test will not only enable administrators to judge the effectiveness of the Profile management service in its entirety, but will also shed light on those user logons/logoffs that are still experiencing delays; this provides insights into how the service can be fine-tuned to enhance the VDI experience of such users.
Note:
This test is relevant only where the Citrix XenDesktop Broker is used to broker connections between the user and the desktops
This test is disabled by default. To enable the test, go to the enable / disable tests page using the menu sequence: Agents -> Tests -> Enable/Disable, pick Citrix XenServer - VDI as the Component type, set Performance as the Test type, choose this test from the disabled tests list, and click on the >> button to move the test to the enableD tests list.
Target of the test : A Citrix Hypervisor
Agent deploying the test : An internal/remote agent
Outputs of the test : One set of results for every user to each virtual desktop on the Citrix XenServer being monitored
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
|
Test period |
How often should the test be executed. |
|
Host |
The host for which the test is to be configured. |
| Port |
The port at which the specified host listens. By default, this is NULL. |
|
Xen User, Xen Password and Confirm Password |
To enable the eG agent to connect to the XenServer API for collecting statistics of interest, this test should login to the target hypervisor as a root user. Provide the name of the root user in the Xen User text box. Root user privileges are mandatory when monitoring a XenServer 5.5 (or below). However, if you are monitoring XenServer 5.6 (or above) and you prefer not to expose the credentials of the root user, then, you have the option of configuring a user with pool-admin privileges as the Xen User. If you do not want to expose the credentials of a root/pool-admin user, then you can configure the tests with the credentials of a Xen User with Read-only privileges to the XenServer. However, if this is done, then the Xen Uptime test will not run, and the Xen CPU and Xen Memory tests will not be able to report metrics for the control domain descriptor. To avoid such an outcome, do the following before attempting to configure the eG tests with a Xen User who has Read-only privileges to the Citrix Hypervisor:
Once this is done, you can configure the eG tests with the credentials of a Xen User with Read-only privileges. The password of the specified Xen User needs to be mentioned in the Xen Password text box. Then, confirm the Xen Password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box. |
| SSL |
By default, the Citrix Hypervisor is not SSL-enabled. This indicates that by default, the eG agent communicates with the target hypervisor using HTTP. Accordingly, the SSL flag is set to No by default. If you configure the target hypervisor to use SSL, then make sure that the SSL flag is set to Yes, so that the eG agent communicates with the target hypervisor using HTTPS. Note that a default SSL certificate comes bundled with every Citrix Hypervisor installation. If you want the eG agent to use this default certificate for communicating with an SSL-enabled Citrix Hypervisor, then no additional configuration is required. However, if you do not want to use the default certificate, then you can generate a self-signed certificate for use by the target hypervisor. In such a case, you need to explicitly follow the broad steps given below to enable the eG agent to communicate with the target hypervisor via HTTPS:
For a detailed discussion on each of these steps, refer to the Troubleshooting section of this document. |
|
Inside View Using |
By default, this test obtains the “inside view” of VMs using the eG VM Agent. Accordingly, the Inside view using flag is set to eG VM Agent by default. The eG VM Agent is a piece of software, which should be installed on every VM on a hypervisor. Every time the eG agent runs this test, it uses the eG VM Agent to pull relevant 'inside view' metrics from each VM. Once the metrics are collected, the eG agent then communicates with each VM agent and pulls these metrics, without requiring administrator privileges. Refer to Configuring the Remote Agent to Obtain the Inside View of VMs for more details on the eG VM Agent. |
|
Domain, Admin User, and Admin Password, and Confirm Password |
By default, these parameters are set to none. This is because, by default, the eG agent collects 'inside view' metrics using the eG VM agent on each VM. Domain administrator privileges need not be granted to the eG agent if it uses this default approach to obtain the 'inside view' of Windows VMs. |
|
Ignore VMs Inside View |
Administrators of some high security environments might not have permissions to internally monitor one/more VMs. The eG agent can be configured to not obtain the 'inside view' of such ‘inaccessible’ VMs using the Ignore VMs Inside View parameter. Against this parameter, you can provide a comma-separated list of VM names, or VM name patterns, for which the inside view need not be obtained. For instance, your IGNORE VMS INSIDE VIEW specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside view of all VMs on a Citrix Hypervisor host by default. Note: While performing VM discovery, the eG agent will not discover the operating system of the VMs configured in the Ignore VMs Inside View text box. |
|
Exclude VMs |
Administrators of some virtualized environments may not want to monitor some of their less-critical VMs - for instance, VM templates - both from 'outside' and from 'inside'. The eG agent in this case can be configured to completely exclude such VMs from its monitoring purview. To achieve this, provide a comma-separated list of VMs to be excluded from monitoring in the Exclude VMs text box. Instead of VMs, VM name patterns can also be provided here in a comma-separated list. For example, your Exclude VMs specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside and outside views of all VMs on a virtual host by default. By providing a comma-separated list of VMs/VM name patterns in the Exclude VMs text box, you can make sure the eG agent stops collecting 'inside' and 'outside' view metrics for a configured set of VMs. |
|
Ignore Winnt |
By default, the eG agent does not support the inside view for VMs executing on Windows NT operating systems. Accordingly, the IGNORE WINNT flag is set to Yes by default. |
|
Webport |
By default, in most virtualized environments, the target hypervisor listens on port 80 (if not SSL-enabled) or on port 443 (if SSL-enabled). This implies that while monitoring an SSL-enabled Citrix hypervisor, the eG agent, by default, connects to port 443 of the server to pull out metrics, and while monitoring a non-SSL-enabled Citrix hypervisor, the eG agent connects to port 80. Accordingly, the webport parameter is set to 80 or 443 depending upon the status of the ssl flag. In some environments however, the default ports 80 or 443 might not apply. In such a case, against the webport parameter, you can specify the exact port at which the target hypervisor in your environment listens so that the eG agent communicates with that port. |
|
Report by User |
While monitoring a Citrix hypervisor, the Report by User flag is set to No by default, indicating that by default, the guest operating systems on the target hypervisor are identified using the host name specified in the operating system. On the other hand, while monitoring a Citrix hypervisor-VDI, this flag is set to Yes by default; this implies that in case of the Citrix hypervisor-VDI model, by default, the desktops will be identified using the login of the user who is accessing them. In other words, in VDI environments, this test will, by default, report measures for every username_on_virtualmachinename. |
|
Report Powered OS |
This flag becomes relevant only if the Report by User flag is set to ‘Yes’. If the report powered os flag is set to Yes (which is the default setting), then this test will report measures for even those VMs that do not have any users logged in currently. Such guests will be identified by their virtualmachine name and not by the username_on_virtualmachinename. On the other hand, if the report powered os flag is set to No, then this test will not report measures for those VMs to which no users are logged in currently. |
| Measurement | Description | Measurement Unit | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Logon Duration |
Indicates the duration of logon processing for this user. |
Secs |
This value helps to measure the reduction in logon times when the Profile Management service 'streams' the profile. Ideally therefore, this value should be low. A high value or a consistent increase in the value of this measure could indicate that profile loading still takes a lot of time at logon - this could be owing to a large profile size. You can then check the value reported by the Logon Bytes measure to know the profile size at logon. If profile sizes continue to grow at logon despite the use of Profile management, it is indicative of the ineffectiveness of profile management. You may then have to fine-tune the feature to further reduce the profile size by excluding more unnecessary files from the profile, or you may have to explore other options such as roaming profiles, mandatory profiles, etc. |
|
Logon Bytes |
Indicates the size of this user's profile when it is retrieved from the user's store at logon. |
MB |
Ideally, the value of this measure should be low. A low profile size could result in faster profile loading at logon, below time to login, and consequently, a richer user experience with the VDI service. If profile sizes continue to grow despite the use of Profile management, it is indicative of the ineffectiveness of profile management. You may then have to fine-tune the feature to further reduce the profile size by excluding more unnecessary files from the profile. |
|
Logoff Duration |
Indicates the duration of logoff processing for this user. |
Secs |
A low value is desired for this measure. A high value could indicate that the profile management service takes too long to update the user's store with changes in the user settings. This could be because of a bad network connection between the virtual desktop and the user's store, or because too many changes are waiting to be written to the user store. |
|
Logoff Bytes |
Indicates the size of this user's profile when it is copied to the user store at logoff. |
MB |
This measure provides a fair idea of the volume of changes that were copied to the user's store at logoff.
|
|
Local Profile Setup Duration |
Indicates the time taken to create or prepare this user's profile on the local computer. |
Secs |
A low value is desired for these measures. If a user complaints of delays during logon, you can use the value of these measures to determine where the VDI service is spending too much time - is it when setting up the local profile? or is it when deleting the local profile?
|
|
Delete Local Profile Duration |
Indicates the time spent deleting this user's local profiles during the initial migration. |
Secs |
|
|
Processed Logon Files - Under 1KB |
Indicates the number of locally copied files for this user's profile that are synchronized during logon and categorized by the file size of 1KB. |
Number |
All the Processed Logon Files measures help VDI administrators to understand whether/not 'profile streaming' (performed by the Profile Management service) has helped in reducing the number of locally copied files during logon. All the Processed Logoff Files measures help VDI administrators to understand how many files changed when the user session was in progress. |
|
Processed Logoff Files - Under 1KB |
Indicates the number of locally copied file for this user's profile that are synchronized during logoff and categorized by the file size of 1KB. |
Number |
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Processed Logon Files - 1KB to 10KB |
Indicates the number of locally copied files for this user's profile that are synchronized during logon and categorized by the file size ranging from 1KB to 10KB. |
Number |
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Processed Logoff Files - 1KB to 10KB |
Indicates the number of locally copied files for this user's profile that are synchronized during logoff and categorized by the file size ranging from 1KB to 10KB. |
Number |
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Processed Logon Files - 10KB to 100KB |
Indicates the number of locally copied files for this user's profile that are synchronized during logon and categorized by the file size ranging from 10KB to 100KB. |
Number |
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Processed Logoff Files - 10KB to 100KB: |
Indicates the number of locally copied files for this user's profile that are synchronized during logoff and categorized by the file size ranging from 1KB to 10KB. |
Number |
All the Processed Logon Files measures help VDI administrators to understand whether/not 'profile streaming' (performed by the Profile Management service) has helped in reducing the number of locally copied files during logon. All the Processed Logoff Files measures help VDI administrators to understand how many files changed when the user session was in progress.
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Processed Logon Files - 100KB to 1MB |
Indicates the number of locally copied files for this user's profile that are synchronized during logon and categorized by the file size ranging from 100KB to 1MB. |
Number |
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Processed Logoff Files - 100KB to 1MB |
Indicates the number of locally copied files for this user's profile that are synchronized during logoff and categorized by the file size ranging from 100KB to 1MB. |
Number |
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Processed Logon Files - 1MB to 5MB |
Indicates the number of locally copied files for this user's profile that are synchronized during logon and categorized by the file size ranging from 1MB to 5MB. |
Number |
|
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Processed Logoff Files - 1MB to 5MB |
Indicates the number of locally copied files for this user's profile that are synchronized during logoff and categorized by the file size ranging from 1MB to 5MB. |
Number |
All the Processed Logon Files measures help VDI administrators to understand whether/not 'profile streaming' (performed by the Profile Management service) has helped in reducing the number of locally copied files during logon. All the Processed Logoff Files measures help VDI administrators to understand how many files changed when the user session was in progress.
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Processed Logon Files - Above 5MB |
Indicates the number of locally copied files for this user's profile that are synchronized during logon and categorized by the file size above 5MB. |
Number |
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Processed Logoff Files - Above 5MB |
Indicates the number of locally copied files for this user's profile that are synchronized during logoff and categorized by the file size above 5MB. |
Number |
