BSOD Occurrences - OS Test

The blue screen of death (BSOD), also known as a stop error screen, blue screen error, fatal error or bugcheck is a critical error screen that can be displayed by Microsoft Windows operating systems (OSes). If and when a BSOD appears, it indicates that Microsoft Windows has encountered a very serious issue from which the system cannot recover on its own. The BSOD functionally renders an affected system non-operational until the issue that triggered the BSOD is resolved with some form of intervention by the user. The BSOD incident typically comes with no warning leading to loosing of all unsaved work.

The BSOD occurs due to various reasons for example, hardware failures, outdated or corrupted drivers, faulty/incompatible software, malware, operating system issues, etc. Administrators may want to track the BSOD occurrences so that they can easily detect the underlying issues in the target host and promptly resolve issues before it permanently renders the host to halt. This is where the BSOD Occurrences test helps!

This test reports the count of BSOD incidents that occurred on the target host. Detailed diagnostics reported by this test can help the administrators to rapidly identify and efficiently troubleshoot the issues that caused the BSOD.

Target of the test : A Microsoft Hyper-V/ Hyper-V VDI

Agent executing the test : A remote agent

Output of the test : One set of results will be reported for every Windows virtual desktop on the Microsoft Hyper-V/ Hyper-V VDI server.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter	Description
Test period	This indicates how often should the test be executed.
Host	Specify the HOST for which this test is to be configured.
Port	Specify the port at which the target host is listening. By default, this is NULL
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.
Is Cloud VMs	This flag is set to Yes by default. The value of this flag cannot be changed. This implies that the cloud-based virtual desktops in 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_desktopname.
Report By User	For the Hyper-V monitoring model, the Report By User flag is set to No by default, indicating that by default, the guest operating systems on the Hyper-V server are identified using the hostname specified in the operating system. On the other hand, for the Hyper-V VDI model, this flag is set to Yes by default; this implies that in case of VDI servers, by default, the guests will be identified using the login of the user who is accessing the guest OS. 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.
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
Blue screen of death occurrences in the last hour	Indicates the number of Blue screen of death (BSOD) errors occurred during the last measurement period.	Number	The value of this measure should be 0. A non-zero value is a cause for concern. The detailed diagnosis of this measure reveals the name of the dump file created when the BSOD occurred, the time stamp at which the crash occurred, the check code and string of the bug that caused the crash, the size of dump file, name of the system, etc.