Nice DCV Performance Test

NICE DCV is a powerful remote visualisation protocol that enables users to securely connect to graphically intensive 3D or 2D applications hosted locally or on a remote 3D visualisation server or cluster of servers on-premises or in the cloud. It can run in your own data center or in the public cloud and delivers secure remote virtual desktops and application streaming from any location to any device, without the need for high bandwidth between the client and the remote desktop.

One of the key factors that influence user experience while appplications are remotely streamed are the latencies experienced by the user while connecting to the desktop via Nice DCV protocol and the bandwidth used when a user interacts with a virtual desktop. High latency and excessive bandwidth consumption can often slowdown access to desktops, thereby significantly delaying subsequent user operations. Hence, monitoring the latency and bandwidth usage of each user connected to virtual desktops via Nice DCV protocol is of utmost importance! This is why, the Nice DCV Performance test auto-discovers the users who are connected to virtual desktops via the Nice DCV protocol, and measures the bandwidth usage, frames processing ability, and time taken to establish each user's session. In the process, bandwidth-hungry, latent sessions can be accurately isolated.

Target of the test : A Windows virtual desktop on the cloud/AWS Windows Workspace/AWS AppStream VM

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every user who is connected to a Windows virtual desktop via the Nice DCV protocol

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The nick name of the Cloud Desktops component for which this test is to be configured.

Port

Refers to the port at which the specified host listens to. By default, this is NULL.

Inside View Using

To obtain the 'inside view' of performance of the cloud-hosted Windows desktops - i.e., to measure the internal performance of the Windows virtual desktops - this test uses a light-weight eG VM Agent software deployed on each of the desktops. Accordingly, this parameter is by default set to eG VM Agent (Windows).

Report By User

This flag is set to Yes by default. The value of this flag cannot be changed. This implies that the virtual desktops hosted in cloud environments will always be identified using the login name of the user. In other words, in cloud environments, this test will, by default, report measures for every username_on_virtualmachinename

Report Powered OS

This flag is relevant only for those tests that are mapped to the Inside View of Desktops layer. If this flag is set to Yes (which is the default setting), then the 'inside view' tests will report measures for even those Windows virtual desktops that do not have any users logged in currently. Such desktops will be identified by their name and not by the username_on_virtualdesktopname. On the other hand, if this flag is set to No, then this test will not report measures for those Windows virtual desktops to which no users are logged in currently.

Is Cloud VMs

Since this test runs for a 'Cloud Desktops' component, this flag is set to Yes by default.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Frame rate

Indicates the rate at which frames are processed during this user's sessions.

Frames/Sec

FPS is how fast your graphics card can output individual frames each second. It is the most time-tested and ideal measure of performance of a GPU. Higher the value of this measure, healthier is the GPU.

Network latency

Indicates the round trip latency between the virtual desktop and this user terminal.

Milliseconds

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 desktop. via Nice DCV protocol.

Input bandwidth

Indicates the overall bandwidth used by incoming Nice DCV packets.

Frames/Sec

Comparing the values of these measures across users will reveal which user is performing bandwidth-intensive operations over the Nice DCV protocol.

 

Output bandwidth

Indicates the overall bandwidth used by outgoing Nice DCV packets.

Kbps

Total bandwidth

Indicates the bandwidth usage of all sessions initiated by this user.

Kbps

Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user is consuming the maximum bandwidth.