PVS Farm Test

A farm represents the top level of a Provisioning Server infrastructure. Farms provide a “Farm Administrator” with a method of representing, defining, and managing logical groups of Provisioning Server components into sites.

All sites within a farm share that farm’s Provisioning Server MS SQL database. A farm also includes a Citrix License Server, local or network shared storage, and collections of target devices.

Using this test, you can understand the composition of your Citrix Provisioning server farm, and can also be proactively alerted to critical problems such as:

  • A sudden break in the connectivity between the Provisioning server farm and the Citrix Licensing server;
  • Inaccessibility of the database server

Target of the test : Citrix Provisioning server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every Citrix Provisional server farm being monitored

Configurable parameters for the test
  1. TEST PERIOD – How often should the test be executed
  2. Host – The host for which the test is to be configured
  3. Port – Refers to the port used by the Citrix Provisioning server. By default, this is 54321.
  4. mcli path – This test executes commands using the Management Command Line Interface (MCLI) of the Provisioning server to collect the required metrics. To enable the test to execute the commands, the eG agent, by default, auto-discovers the full path MCLI.exe on the target Provisioning server. This is why, the mcli path is set to none by default. If, for some reason, the eG agent is unable to auto-discover the mcli path, then you will have to manually specify the path here using the following pointers:

    • Typically, in a 32-bit Windows system, the MCLI.exe will be available in the following location by default: <System_Root>\Program Files\Citrix\Provisioning Services Console
    • In a 64-bit Windows system on the other hand, the MCLI.exe will be available in the following location by default: <System_Root>\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\Provisioning Services Console
  5. domain name, domain user and domain password – To report farm-related metrics, this test should run using the credentials of a user who fulfills the following requirements:

    • Should belong to the Security group with 'Farm Administrator' access.
    • Should be assigned the Allow log on locally security privilege on the Citrix Provisioning Server host.

    The steps for assigning such privileges to a user are detailed in the Pre-requisites for monitoring the Citrix Provisioning Server topic.

    Once you assigned the aforesaid privileges to the user, then configure this test with the domain name, domain user, and domain password of the same user.

  6. 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

License server availability:

Indicates the availability of the Citrix License Server which is used to hold the Citrix Provisioning Server licenses.

Percent

If the value returned is 0, it could indicate that the License server is either down or too busy, or the interconnecting network is down. The value 100 indicates that the License server is accessible.

If a Citrix License server is suddenly rendered unavailable, then all active Provisioning Services clients will continue working until a restart occurs. If the License server continues to remain unavailable during startup, then the clients go to grace period; till the end of the grace period of 720 hours, the Provisioning Services clients continue working. Once the grace period ends, the clients restart again. If the Citrix License server is still unavailable, then the clients receive a five-minute shutdown-warning message; at the end of the 5 minutes, the clients shutdown.  

If the License server is unavailable, you may want to use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to determine the IP address and port number of the License server, so that further investigations can be performed.

 

Database server availability:

Indicates the availability of the Provisioning server database.

Percent

If the value returned is 0, it could indicate that the database server is either down or too busy, or the interconnecting network is down. The value 100 on the other hand indicates that the database is accessible.

A PVS Farm uses a Microsoft SQL database to store all Farm information.  Provisioning Services supports a variety of Microsoft SQL database platforms (MS SQL 2005, MS SQL 2008, MS SQL 2008R2, and Express as of this writing).  The availability of the database is critical to the operation of the PVS Farm.  If the database is not available then no Target Devices will be able to boot and receive a streamed vDisk.

In the event of the non-availability of the database therefore, you may want to use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to determine the IP address and port number of the database server, so that further investigations can be performed.

Sites count:

Indicates the number of sites that have been configured in this farm.

Number

A site provides both a “Site Administrator” and farm administrator, with a method of representing and managing logical groupings of Provisioning Servers, Device Collections, and local shared storage.

To know which sites are part of the farm, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure.

Servers count:

Indicates the number of Citrix Provisioning servers as member servers in the Citrix Provisioning server farm.

Number

To know which servers are part of the farm, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure.

Stores count:

Indicates the number of stores created in the Citrix Provisioning server farm.

Number

A store is a logical name that is given to a physical vDisk storage location. The store name is the common name used by all Provisioning Servers within the farm.

To know which stores are part of the farm, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure.

Farm views defined:

Indicates the number of views created in the Citrix Provisioning server.

Number

You can create views containing target devices to display only those target devices that you are currently interested in viewing or performing tasks on. Adding target devices to a view provides a quick and easy way to perform a task on members of that view, such as:

  • Boot
  • Restart
  • Shutdown
  • Send message

Views can be created at the site level or at the farm level.

To know which views are part of the farm, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure.

The detailed diagnosis of the License server availability measure allows you to view the IP address and port number of the License server used by a farm. If the License server is unavailable, you may want to use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to determine the IP address and port number of the License server, so that further investigations can be performed.

Figure 2 : The detailed  diagnosis of the License server availability measure

The detailed diagnosis of the Database server availability measure reveals the IP address, port number and database instance of the database server used for storing the configuration settings of the farm. In the event of the non-availability of the database therefore, you may want to use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to determine the IP address and port number of the database server, so that further investigations can be performed.

Figure 3 : The detailed diagnosis of the Database server availability measure

To know which sites have been configured in the farm, use the detailed diagnosis of the Site count measure.

Figure 4 : The detailed diagnosis of the Site count measure

To know which servers are included in the farm, use the detailed diagnosis of the Server count measure.

Figure 5 : The detailed diagnosis of the Server count measure

To know which stores are supported by the farm, use the detailed diagnosis of the Stores count measure.

Figure 6 : The detailed diagnosis of the Stores count measure

To know which views have been defined in the farm, use the detailed diagnosis of the Farm views defined measure.

Figure 7 : The detailed diagnosis of the Farm views defined measure