VBSS Performance - RT Test

In general, A/V conferencing enables real-time audio and video communications between the Microsoft Teams users. However, most Microsoft Teams users use Video-based screen sharing (Vbss) for communication. The difference between VbSS and traditional screen-sharing has to do with the underlying protocols used, and what they excel at. Screen-sharing uses the remote desktop protocol (RDP), which is great at creating thousands of 1-to-1 sessions between users. Vbss use User Datagram Protocol (UDP) which helps in improving your video start times, the viewing quality of what you're watching (especially if what you're watching is moving fast), and overall reliability.

In environments where users use Vbss streams for communication, it becomes mandatory for the administrator to check the quality of the VBSS stream conferencing experience and the load on Microsoft Teams so that administrators may proactively be alerted to abnormalities/technical glitches in the conferences. This is where the VBSS Streams- RT test helps.

Using this test, you can easily figure out the total number of video streams and the count of video streams that were classified as poor, good and unclassified. Administrators can also figure out the reason why the video streams were classified as poor - is it due to high video frame rate? or high video local frame loss? or high video post Fec plr?

Target of the test : Microsoft Teams

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the monitored Microsoft Teams service

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters Description

Test period

How often should the test be executed

Host

The host for which the test is to be configured. By default, this is portal.office.com

Tenant Name

This parameter applies only if you want the eG agent to use Azure AD Certificate-based Authentication for accessing and monitoring an O365 tenant and its resources.

Azure AD certificate-based authentication (CBA) enables customers to allow or require users to authenticate with X.509 certificates against their Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) for applications and browser sign-in. When monitoring highly secure Office 365 environments, you can configure the eG agent to identify itself to a tenant using a valid X.509 certificate, so that it is allowed secure access to the tenant and its resources.

By default, the value of this parameter is none. This means that, by default, the eG agent does not use certificate-based authentication to connect to an O365 tenant.

On the other hand, if you want the eG agent to use this modern authentication technique to securely access a tenant's resources, you should do the following:

  1. Enable Azure AD Certificate-based authentication for the target O365 tenant; this can be achieved manually, via the Office 365 portal, or automatically, using Powershell scripts we provide. For the manual procedure, refer to Manually Enabling Certificate-based Authentication For an Office 365 Tenantunder Microsoft Office 365. For the automatic procedure, refer to Automatically Fulfilling Pre-requisites in a Modern Authentication-Enabled Environmentunder Microsoft Office 365.

    When enabling certificate-based authentication, an X.509 certificate will be generated for the target tenant.

  2. Configure the Tenant Name parameter with the name of the tenant for which certificate-based authentication is enabled. Using the tenant name, the eG agent will be able to read the details of the X.509 certificate that is generated for that tenant, and use that certificate to access that tenant's resources. To determine the tenant name, do the following:

    • Log in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center as an administrator.

    • Under Setup, click on Domains.

    • Find a domain that ends with .onmicrosoft.com - this is your Microsoft O365 tenant name.

O365 User Name, O365 Password, and Confirm Password

These parameters need to be configured only if the Tenant Name parameter is set to none. On the other hand, if a valid Tenant Name is configured, then you should set these parameters to none .

For execution, this test requires the privileges of an O365 user who has been assigned the Service support admin role and is vested with the View-Only Audit Logs and Team administrator permission. Configure the credentials of such a user against O365 User Name and O365 Password text boxes. Confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.

Domain Name, Domain User Name, Domain Password, and Confirm Password

These parameters are applicable only if the eG agent needs to communicate with the Office 365 portal via a Proxy server.

In this case, in the Domain text box, specify the name of the Windows domain to which the eG agent host belongs. In the Domain User Name text box, mention the name of a valid domain user with login rights to the eG agent host. Provide the password of that user in the Domain Password text box and confirm that password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.

On the other hand, if the eG agent is not behind a Proxy server, then you need not disturb the default setting of these parameters. By default, these parameters are set to none.

Proxy Host, Proxy Port, Proxy User Name, Proxy Password and Confirm Password

These parameters are applicable only if the eG agent needs to communicate with the Office 365 portal via a Proxy server.

In this case, provide the IP/host name and port number of the Proxy server that the eG agent should use in the Proxy Host and Proxy Port parameters, respectively.

If the Proxy server requires authentication, then specify the credentials of a valid Proxy user against the Proxy User Name and Proxy Password text boxes. Confirm that password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box. If the Proxy server does not require authentication, then specify none against the Proxy User Name, Proxy Password, and Confirm Password text boxes.

On the other hand, if the eG agent is not behind a Proxy server, then you need not disturb the default setting of any of the Proxy-related parameters. By default, these parameters are set to none.

Show N Good Streams

By default, this parameter is set to all, indicating that the detailed diagnostics will report details of all streams that perform well. You can change the 'N' in Show N Good Streams by specifying any number of your choice in this text box.

Show N Poor Streams

By default, this parameter is set to all, indicating that the detailed diagnostics will report details of all streams that perform poorly. You can change the 'N' in Show N Poor Streams by specifying any number of your choice in this text box.

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 the 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 enabled/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

Unclassified streams

Indicates the number of video-based-screen-sharing streams that did not have sufficient data to be classified as good or poor.

Number

Use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to know which VBSS streams were marked as unclassified. The start time, end time, first UPN, second UPN, first and second IP addresses, conference ID, segment ID, call type, participants, caller and callee of each unclassified stream is reported as part of detailed diagnosis, along with the number of times every stream was marked as unclassified.

Total VBSS streams

Indicates the total number of video-based-screen-sharing streams.

Number

 

Poor streams due to high video post FECPLR

Indicates the number of video-based-screen-sharing streams where the Video Post Fec plr exceeds the pre-defined thresholds.

Number

The detailed diagnosis of this measure lists the start time, end time, first UPN, second UPN, first IP address, second IP address, conference ID, the list of participants, caller and callee ID, and the count of times that each stream was classified as 'poor' due to high video post FECPLR.

Poor streams due to high video local frame loss

Indicates the number of video-based-screen-sharing streams that were classified as poor owing to Video Local Frame Loss.

Number

The detailed diagnosis of this measure lists the start time, end time, first UPN, second UPN, first IP address, second IP address, conference ID, the list of participants, caller and callee ID, and the count of times that each stream was classified as 'poor' due to high video local frame loss.

Poor streams due to high video frame rate

Indicates the number of video-based-screen-sharing streams that were classified as poor owing to high video frame rate.

Number

The detailed diagnosis of this measure lists the start time, end time, first UPN, second UPN, first IP address, second IP address, conference ID, the list of participants, caller and callee ID, and the count of times that each stream was classified as 'poor' due to high video frame rate.

Poor streams

Indicates the number of video-based-screen-sharing streams classified as poor.

Number

 

Poor streams percentage

Indicates the percentage of video-based-screen-sharing streams that were classified as poor.

Percentage

 

Good streams

Indicates the number of video-based-screen-sharing streams that were classified as good.

Number

The detailed diagnosis of this measure lists the start time, end time, first UPN, second UPN, first IP address, second IP address, conference ID, the list of participants, caller and callee ID, and the count of times that each stream was classified as 'good'.

The detailed diagnosis of the Poor streams measure lists the start time, end time, first UPN, second UPN, first IP address, second IP address, conference ID and the number of VBSS streams that are classified as poor.

 Poor Streams Measure Detailed Diagnosis

Figure 1 : The detailed diagnosis of the Poor streams measure reported by the VBSS Performance - RT test