Citrix Users EDT Performance Test

Adaptive Transport – a new transport mechanism for virtual servers is faster, more scalable, improves application interactivity, and more interactive on long-haul WAN and internet connections. When Adaptive Transport is used, ICA virtual channels intelligently switch the underlying protocol for user sessions between Enlightened Data Transport protocol and TCP to deliver faster, scalable and reliable performance.

When users have connected to the virtual desktops via EDT protocol, administrators may often want to know how the experience of each user is. This is why, the Citrix Users EDT Performance test auto-discovers the users who are logged into the virtual desktops (via the EDT protocol) provisioned using the Citrix Virtual Apps servers, and measures the bandwidth usage, packets transmission and reception, and latency of each user with the server. In the process, bandwidth-hungry, latent user sessions can be accurately isolated.

Target of the test : Citrix Virtual Apps

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every user who is currently logged into the virtual desktops (via the EDT protocol) provisioned using the Citrix Virtual Apps servers.

Configurable parameters for the test
Test period - How often should the test be executed Host - The host for which the test is to be configured. port – The port number at which the specified HOST listens to. By default, this is 1494. Citrix home - By default, the CITRIX HOME parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent would automatically discover the location at which the Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) is installed for collecting the metrics of this test. If the Virtual Delviery Agent is installed in a different location in your Citrix environment, then indicate that location in the CITRIX HOME text box. REPORT BY DOMAIN NAME - By default, the flag is set to Yes. This implies that by default, this test will report metrics for every domainname\username configured for this test. This way, administrators will be able to quickly determine which user logged in from which domain. If you want the test to report metrics for the username alone, then set this flag to No. DD FREQUENCY – Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against dd frequency. 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
Number of sessions	Indicates the number of sessions initiated by this user.	Number	The value 0 indicates that the user is not currently connected to the Citrix server.
Bandwidth	Indicates the bandwidth usage of all sessions of this user.	Kbps	Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user is consuming the maximum bandwidth.
Round trip time	Indicates the round trip latency between the virtual machine and this user.	Seconds	Comparing the value of this measure across users will enable administrators to quickly and accurately identify users who are experiencing higher latency when connecting to a virtual machine via EDT protocol.
Flow window	Indicates the size of the flow window.	KB	The flow window and congestion window are used to control the congestion in the network. The smaller the value of both the windows, the data will be sent without any delay. The larger the value, the data will be added up in the sent queue and it will be sent with delay.
Congestion window	Indicates the size of the congestion window.	KB
Sent packets	Indicates the number of EDT packets sent by this user.	Packets
Received packets	Indicates the number of EDT packets received by this user.	Packets
Retransmitted packets	Indicates the number of EDT packets that were retransmitted by the user.	Packets
Lost sent packets	Indicates the number of packets lost by this user during transmission.	Packets	Ideally, the value of this measure should be zero. Comparing the value of these measures across users will enable administrators to quickly and accurately identify users who have extensively lost packets during transmission and reception of packets via EDT protocol.
Lost received packets	Indicates the number of packets lost by this user during reception.	Packets
Sent acknowledgments	Indicates the number of acknowledgments that were received by this user for sending the EDT packets.	Number
Sent negative acknowledgements	Indicates the number of negative acknowledgements that were received by this user for sending the EDT packets.	Number
Received acknowledgements	Indicates the number of acknowledgements that were received by this user for reception of EDT packets.	Number
Received negative acknowledgements	Indicates the number of negative acknowledgements that were received by this user for reception of EDT packets.	Number
Data transmitted	Indicates the amount of data transmitted by this user.	KB	Compare the values of these measures to find out which user transmitted/received the maximum amount of data through EDT protocol.
Data received	Indicates the amount of data received by this user.	KB
Packet arrival rate	Indicates the rate at which the EDT packets arrived at this user's desktop.	Packets/sec
Packet sending period	Indicates the time taken by this user for sending the EDT packets.	Milliseconds
Packets in flight	Indicates the number of EDT packets that have been sent by this user but have not yet been acknowledged or confirmed as received by the destination.	Packets
Receiver queue size available	Indicates the number of EDT packets in the receiver queue of this user.	Number
Sender queue size available	Indicates the number of EDT packets in the sender queue of this user.	Number
Out of order packets	Indicates the number of out of sequence packets received by this user.	Number	The out-of-order packets refer to data packets that arrive at the destination out of sequence. In an ideal network, packets arrive in the order they were sent, but due to various reasons, including network congestion, routing changes, or issues with network devices, packets might reach their destination out of order. The value of this measure is preferred to be low.
Output buffers available	Indicates the number of output buffers available for use by this user.	Number	A high value is desired for this measure.
Output buffers in use	Indicates the number of the output buffers that are currently in use.	Number