RemoteFX User Experience - OS Test

Microsoft RemoteFX™ enables the delivery of a full Windows user experience to a range of client devices including rich clients, thin clients, and ultrathin clients. RemoteFX delivers a rich user experience for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) by providing a 3D virtual adapter, intelligent codecs, and the ability to redirect USB devices in virtual machines. RemoteFX is integrated with the RDP protocol, which enables shared encryption, authentication, management, and device support. RemoteFX also delivers a rich user experience for session-based desktops and RemoteApp programs to a broad range of client devices.

If a remote user’s experience with a RemoteFX-enabled Hyper-V server is poor, then administrators should be able to quickly figure out what is causing the quality of the UX to suffer – is it poor frame quality? or severe packet loss? or bad picture output owing to a high compression ratio? or bottleneck in TCP/UDP connectivity? The RemoteFX User Experience - OS test helps answer this question. For each remote user connecting to a RemoteFX-enabled Hyper-V server, this test measures user experience and reports abnormalities (if any). This way, users who are experiencing a poor visual experience can be isolated and the reason for the same can be ascertained. In addition, the test points you to RemoteFX features that may have to be tweaked in order to improve overall performance.

Target of the test : A Hyper-V VDI server

Agent executing the test : An internal agent

Output of the test : One set of results for every user who is logged into the target Hyper-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 communicates with every VM remotely and extracts “inside view” metrics. Therefore, by default, the Inside View Using flag is set to Remote connection to VM (Windows). Typically, to establish this remote connection, eG Enterprise requires that the eG agent be configured with domain administrator privileges. In high-security environments, where the IT staff might have reservations about exposing the credentials of their domain administrators, this approach to extracting “inside view” metrics might not be preferred. In such environments therefore, eG Enterprise provides administrators the option to deploy a piece of software called the eG VM Agent on every Windows VM; this VM agent allows the eG agent to collect “inside view” metrics from the Windows VMs without domain administrator rights. Refer to Configuring Windows Virtual Machines to Support theInside View Using the eG VM Agent topic for more details on the eG VM Agent. To ensure that the “inside view” of Windows VMs is obtained using the eG VM Agent, set the Inside View Using flag to eG VM Agent (Windows). Once this is done, you can set the Domain, Admin User, and Admin Password parameters to none.
Domain, Admin User, Admin Password, and Confirm Password	By default, this test connects to each virtual guest remotely and attempts to collect “inside view” metrics. Accordingly, the Inside View Using flag is set to Remote connection to VM (Windows) by default. To obtain a remote connection, the test must be configured with the privileges of an administrative user to the domain within which the guests reside. The first step towards this is to specify the DOMAIN within which the virtual guests reside. The Admin User and Admin password will change according to the Domain specification. Discussed below are the different values that the Domain parameter can take, and how they impact the Admin User and Admin Password specifications: If the VMs belong to a single domain: If the guests belong to a specific domain, then specify the name of that domain against the Domain parameter. In this case, any administrative user in that domain will have remote access to all the virtual guests. Therefore, an administrator account in the given domain can be provided in the Admin User field and the corresponding password in the Admin Password field. Confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box. If the VMs belong to different domains: In this case, you might want to provide multiple domain names. If this is done, then, to access the guests in every configured domain, the test should be configured with the required user privileges; this implies that along with multiple Domain names, multiple Admin User names and Admin Passwords would also have to be provided. To help administrators provide these user details quickly and easily, the eG administrative interface embeds a special configuration page. To access this page, simply click on the Click here hyperlink that appears just above the parameters of this test in the test configuration page. To know how to use the special page, refer to Configuring Users for VM Monitoring topic. If the Inside View Using flag is set to ‘eG VM Agent (Windows)’: On the other hand, if the inside view using flag is set to eG VM Agent (Windows), then it implies that the Inside View can be obtained without domain administrator privileges. Therefore, set the Domain, Admin User, and Admin Password, parameters to none.
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.
Report Powered ON	You can set the Report Powered ON status to Yes, so that the test reports an additional measure, Is VM powered on?, revealing whether a guest OS is currently running or not. The default status of this flag is set to Yes for a Hyper-V server. For a Hyper-V VDI server on the other hand, the default status of this flag is No. This is because, in such environments, the virtual desktops will be in the powered-off state most of the time.
Ignore VMs Inside View	Administrators of some high security Hyper-V 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 Hyper-V 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.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Average frames encoding time	Indicates the average time taken for encoding the frames of this user.	Secs	Compare the value of this measure across users to know for which user frames encoding took too long. Encoding is a synchronous process that occurs on the server in the single-session (vGPU) scenario and on the VM in the multi-session scenario. The value of this measure should be under 33 ms. If it is under 33 ms but you still have performance issues, there may be an issue with the app or operating system you are using.
Frame quality	Indicates the quality of the output frame expressed as a percentage of the quality of the source frame for this user.	Percent	High frame rates produce a smooth representation of frames for the particular user, while low frame rates may cause rough or choppy representation of frames for the particular user. A high value is hence desired for this measure. Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user received the poorest frame quality. The quality loss may be due to RemoteFX, or it may be inherent to the graphics source. If RemoteFX caused the quality loss, the issue may be a lack of network or server resources to send higher-fidelity content. If server resources are causing the bottleneck, try one of the following approaches to improve performance: Reduce the number of sessions per host. Increase the memory and compute resources on the server. Drop the resolution of the connection. If network resources are causing the bottleneck, try one of the following approaches to improve network availability per session: Reduce the number of sessions per host. Use a higher-bandwidth network. Drop the resolution of the connection. If client resources are causing the bottleneck, try one of the following approaches to improve performance: Install the most recent Remote Desktop client. Increase memory and compute resources on the client machine.
Frames skipped due to insufficient client resources	Indicates the rate at which frames were skipped for this user due to insufficient client resources.	Frames/Sec	A low value is desired for this measure. Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user is connecting from a client sized with inadequate resources. If this measure reports an unusually high value for a user, try one of the following approaches to improve the experience for that user: Install the most recent Remote Desktop client. Increase memory and compute resources on the client machine.
Frames skipped due to insufficient network resources	Indicates the rate at which frames were skipped for this user due to insufficient network resources.	Frames/Sec	A low value is desired for this measure. Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user is connecting via a network that is sized with inadequate resources. If this measure reports an unusually high value for a user, try one of the following approaches to improve network availability for that user's sessions: Reduce the number of sessions per host. Use a higher-bandwidth network. Drop the resolution of the connection.
Frames skipped due to insufficient server resources	Indicates the rate at which frames were skipped for this user due to insufficient server resources.	Frames/Sec	A low value is desired for this measure. Compare the value of this measure across users to know which user was unable to receive frames due to the lack of enough resources on the virtual server. If this measure reports an unusually high value for a user, try one of the following approaches to improve the experience of that user: Reduce the number of sessions per host. Increase the memory and compute resources on the server. Drop the resolution of the connection.
Graphics compression ratio	Indicates the ratio of the number of bytes encoded to the number of bytes input for this user.	Percent	The compression ratio typically affects the quality of the picture. Generally, the higher the compression ratio, the poorer the quality of the resulting picture. Ideally therefore, the value of this measure should be 0. You can compare the value of this measure across users to identify that user whose picture output was very poor owing to high compression.
Input frames	Indicates the number of source frames provided per second as input to the RemoteFx graphics for this user.	Frames/Sec
Output Frames	Indicates the number of source frames sent per second to this user as output of RemoteFx graphics.	Frames/Sec	If this value is less than that of the Input Frames measure, it means that frames are being skipped. To identify the bottleneck, use the 'Frames skipped....' measures. A high value for any of the 'Frames skipped...' measures implies that the problem is related to the resource the counter tracks. For example, if the client does not decode and present frames at the same rate the server provides the frames, the frames skipped due to insufficient client resources will be high. On the other hand, if the value of this measure matches that of the Input frames measure, check the value of the Average frames encoding time measure. The value of the Average frames encoding time measure should be under 33 ms. If it is under 33 ms but you still have performance issues, there may be an issue with the app or operating system you are using.
Source frames	Indicates number of frames per second composed at the source for this user.	Frames/Sec
Base TCP round trip time	Indicates the time between initiating a network request and receiving a response over TCP for this user.	Seconds	A high value for this measure could indicate a bottleneck in TCP connectivity between the user terminal and the server.
Base UDP round trip time	Indicates the time between initiating a network request and receiving a response over UDP for this user.	Seconds	A high value for this measure could indicate a bottleneck in UDP connectivity between the user terminal and the server.
Current TCP bandwidth	Indicates the amount of data that is currently carried from one point to another over TCP for this user.	Mbps	A consistent rise in the value of this measure could indicate that TCP traffic to/from the user is consuming bandwidth excessively. Compare the value of this measure across users to identify that user who is performing bandwidth-intensive operations on the VDI server.
Current TCP round trip time	Indicates the average time between initiating a network request and receiving a response over TCP for this user.	Seconds	A high value could indicate a current problem with TCP connectivity between the user terminal and the server.
Current UDP bandwidth	Indicates the amount of data that is currently carried from one point to another over UDP for this user.	Mbps	A consistent rise in the value of this measure could indicate that UDP traffic to/from the user is consuming bandwidth excessively. Compare the value of this measure across users to identify that user who is performing bandwidth-intensive operations on the VDI server.
Current UDP round trip time	Indicates the average time between initiating a network request and receiving a response over UDP for this user.	Secs	A high value could indicate a current problem with UDP connectivity between the user terminal and the server.
Forward error correction	Indicates the percentage of forward error corrections performed for this user.	Percent	RemoteFX UDP transport uses Forward Error Correction (FEC) to recover from the lost data packets. In the cases where such packets can be recovered, the transport doesn’t need to wait for the data to be retransmitted, which allows immediate delivery of data and prevents Head of Line Blocking. Preventing this stall results in an overall improved responsiveness. A high value is hence desired for this measure.
Loss	Indicates the percentage of packets lost when being transmitted to this user.	Percent	A high value indicates that a large number of packets were lost without being retransmitted. By comparing the value of this measure across users, you can find that user who has suffered the maximum data loss. This could be owing to a bad network connection between the remote user terminal and the server.
Retransmissions	Indicates the percentage of packets that have been retransmitted to this user.	Percent	Retransmissions should only occur when it is certain that a packet to be retransmitted was actually lost. Redundant retransmissions can also occur because of lost acknowledgments, coarse feedback, and bad retransmissions. Retransmission rates over 5% can indicate degraded network performance on a LAN. The internet may vary between 5 and 15 percent depending upon traffic conditions. Any value above 25 percent indicates an excessive number of retransmissions that will significantly increase the time for the file transfer and annoy the user.
TCP received rate	Indicates the rate at which the data is received over TCP for this user.	Kbps	A high value is desired for these measures as it indicates high TCP throughput.
TCP sent rate	Indicates the rate at which the data is sent over TCP for this user.	Kbps
UDP received rate	Indicates the rate at which the data is received over UDP for this user.	Kbps	A high value is desired for these measures as it indicates high UDP throughput.
UDP sent rate	Indicates the rate at which the data is sent over UDP for this user.	Kbps