AVD Connection Failures Report

Frequent virtual desktop connection failures are one of the key causes for user dissatisfaction with the AVD service. Prompt detection of such failures and rapid restoration of connection can help salvage the users' AVD experience. To mitigate this, administrators should know why a failure happened and which type of failures were frequently encountered by users over a period of time. The AVD Connection Failures report helps administrators in this regard. Using this report, administrators can historically analyze the user connection failures by failure type. This report also sheds light on the failure count for each type, and also reveals the details such as when exactly the connection failed, the failure message, name of the host pool, session host, user, source and resource group, etc. for each failure. This way, administrators can easily find out the users of which host pool, session host, source and resource frequently encountered connection failures and initiate remedial actions to resolve the failures before it causes serious degradation.

To generate the AVD Connection Failures report, do the following:

Select the Connection Failures option by following the menu sequence: REPORTS BY FUNCTION -> Domain-specific Reports -> Azure Virtual Desktops -> By Broker.
Figure 1 will then appear.

Figure 1 : Setting criteria for generating the report
Administrators of large IT infrastructures, which are characterized by hundreds of components, may find it difficult to pick and choose the components for which a report is to be generated; this is because, in such environments, the Components list in this page will be populated with a large number of components, which would naturally make component selection tough. To enable administrators of such environments to quickly locate the components of interest to them and swiftly generate the reports, eG Enterprise provides a Analyze By list that consists of a variety of filter options. By default, the Zone option is chosen from this list (see Figure 1) – this indicates that the components for which a report is to be generated is part of a zone. To include sub-zones also in your search for components, set the Include Subzones flag to Yes. In addition to this, the Analyze By list provides the following filter options as well:
- Service:If the component for which reports are to be generated is involved in the delivery of a particular service, then pick this option from the Analyze By list. Doing so will invoke a Service list from which a service name is to be chosen. Upon selection of a service, the component types that are part of the service will be populated in the Component Type list of this page. Once you pick a component type, all components of that type, which are engaged in the delivery of the chosen service, will be displayed as candidates for selection in the Components list. If there are still too many components in the list to choose from, you can narrow your search further by using the Search text box. Specify the whole/part of the component name to search for in this text box, and click the icon next to it. The Components list will then be populated with all component names that embed the specified search string. Select the component of your choice from this list.
- Segment:If the components for which a report is to be generated is part of a segment, pick the Segment option from the Analyze By list. Then, select the segment of interest to you from the Segment list. This will populate the Component Type list with the types of components that are part of the chosen segment. If you select a component type from the Component Type list, then, all components of that type, which are part of the chosen segment, will be displayed in the Components list for selection. If there are still too many components in the list to choose from, you can narrow your search further by using the Search text box. Specify the whole/part of the component name to search for in this text box, and click the icon button next to it. The Components list will then be populated with all component names that embed the specified search string. Select the component of your choice from this list.
- Components:If you select a Component from the Analyze By list and a component type from the Component Type list, then, all components of that type, which are not part of a zone/segment/service, will be displayed in the Components list for selection. If the Components list consists of too many components, then viewing all the components and selecting the ones you need for report generation could require endless scrolling. To avoid this, you can click the icon next to the Components list. A COMPONENTS pop up window will then appear using which you can view almost all the components in a single interface and Select the ones to be included for generating the report. If there are still too many components in the list to choose from, you can narrow your search further by using the Search text box. Specify the whole/part of the component name to search for in this text box, and click the icon next to it. The Components list will then be populated with all component names that embed the specified search string. Select the component of your choice from this list.
Select the Zone to which the Microsoft AVD Control Plane components of interest to you belong. If no zones have been configured in your environment, then all the managed servers in the environment will be automatically grouped under a zone named Default; in such cases therefore, select the Default zone.
By default, Microsoft AVD Control Plane is chosen as the component type from the Component Type list.
Once the component is chosen from the Components list, the Host Pools list will be populated with all the host pools that are mapped to the chosen component. By default, this report will be generated for all host pools. To this effect, AIl Host Pools option will be chosen from this list, by default. If you wish to generate the report for a host pool of your choice, then you can do so by selecting the host pool from this list.
Similarly, once the component is chosen from the Components list, the Resource Groups list will be populated with all the resource groups that are mapped to the chosen component. By default, this report will be generated for all resource groups. To this effect, AIl Resource Groups option will be chosen from this list. If you wish to generate the report for a resource group of your choice, then you can do so by selecting the resource group from this list.
By default, '*' is specified in the User Name text box indicating that this report will be generated for all the users connected via the chosen Components. If you wish to generate the report for a particular user, then specify the whole user name or part of the user name followed by a trailing '*' that signifies any number of trailing characters. For example, let us say, you specify sam,jo* in the User Name text box. Now, the report will be generated for the user "sam" and one or more users whose names start with the letters "jo".
By default, '*' is specified in the Source text box indicating that this report will be generated for all the sources that the users used to connect to the chosen Components. If you wish to generate the report for a particular source, then specify the whole source name or part of the source name followed by a trailing '*' that signifies any number of trailing characters. For example, let us say, you specify client,FX* in the Source text box. Now, the report will include the details of the source "client" and one or more sources whose names start with the letters "FX".
Then, specify the Timeline for the report. You can either provide a fixed time line such as 1 hour, 2 days, etc., or select the Any option from the list to provide a From and To date/time for report generation.

Note:

For every user registered with the eG Enterprise system, the administrator can indicate the maximum timeline for which that user can generate a report. Once the maximum timeline is set for a user, then, whenever that user logs into eG Reporter and attempts to generate a report, the Timeline list box in the report page will display options according to the maximum timeline setting of that user. For instance, if a user can generate a report for a maximum period of 3 days only, then 3 days will be the highest option displayed in the Timeline list - i.e., 3 days will be the last option in the fixed Timeline list. Similarly, if the user chooses the Any option from the Timeline list and proceeds to provide a start date and end date for report generation using the From and To specifications, eG Enterprise will first check if the user’s Timeline specification conforms to his/her maximum timeline setting. If not, report generation will fail. For instance, for a user who is allowed to generate reports spanning over a maximum period of 3 days only, the difference between the From and To dates should never be over 3 days. If it is, then, upon clicking the Run Report button a message box will appear, prompting the user to change the From and To specification.
In addition to the settings discussed above, this report comes with a set of default specifications. These settings are hidden by default. If you do not want to disturb these default settings, then you can proceed to generate the report by clicking the Run Report button soon after you pick the criteria for generating the report. However, if you want to view and then alter these settings (if required), click on the button. The default settings will then appear in the More Options drop down window (see Figure 2). The steps below discuss each of these settings and how they can be customized.

Figure 2 : The default settings for generating the AVD Connection Failures report
Specify the start time and end time for report generation against the Time Period field (see Figure 2).
If the timeline specified for the report needs to exclude the data collected during the Weekends, then set Exclude weekends to Yes(Saturday,Sunday). If not, select No.

Note:

By default, the weekend constitutes Saturday and Sunday. To override this default setting, do the following:
- Edit the eg_reportTemplate.ini file in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory.
- In the [AVDBROKER_CONNECTION_FAILURES] section of the file, the exclude_weekend parameter is set to Saturday,Sunday by default. You can modify this by setting the exclude_weekend parameter to a comma-separated list of other days of the week - say Friday,Saturday.
- Save the file after making the required changes.
By default, the Show Details flag is set to Yes indicating that the generated report will include an additional Details table with detailed information such as resource groups, host pools and session hosts accessed by each user, source name, site IP, version, type and OS of the client, etc. If this flag is set to No, then the Details section will not appear in the generated the report.
In large environments, reports generated using months of data can take a long time to complete. Administrators now have the option of generating reports on-line or in the background. When a report is scheduled for background generation, administrators can proceed with their other monitoring, diagnosis, and reporting tasks, while the eG manager is processing the report. This saves the administrator valuable time. To schedule background processing of a report, you can either select the Background Save - PDF option or the Background Save - CSV option from the Report Generation list. In this case, a Report Name text box will appear, where you would have to provide the name with which the report is to be saved in the background. To process reports in the foreground, select the Foreground Generation - HTML option from this list.

Note:
- The Report Generation list will appear only if the EnableBackgroundReport flag in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the [EG_INSTALL_DIR]\manager\config directory) is set to Yes.
- The default selection in the Report Generation list will change according to the Timeline specified for the report. If the Timeline set is greater than or equal to the number of days specified against the MinDurationForReport parameter in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Background. On the other hand, if the Timeline set for the report is lesser than the value of the MinDurationForReport parameter, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Foreground. This is because, the MinDurationForReport setting governs when reports are to be processed in the background. By default, this parameter is set to 2 weeks - this indicates that by default, reports with a timeline of 2 weeks and above will be processed in the background.
Once you are done with your selection, click the Done button to exit More Options drop down window.
Finally, click the Run Report button to generate the report.

Figure 3 : The AVD Connection Failures report
If you have chosen Foreground Generation - HTML from the Report Generation list is , then, clicking on the Run Report button will invoke Figure 3, which will comprise of the following:
- The Summary section in Figure 3 provides an at-a-glance view of the total count of connection failures noticed in the target environment during the chosen time period. In addition, this section reveals the count of unique host pools, unique session hosts and the count of unique users who experienced connection failures.
- The bar graphs in the Top 10 Host Pools with Most Failures and Top 10 Session Hosts with Most Failures sections (see Figure 3) help administrators identify at a single glance the host pools and session hosts that encountered maximum number of connection failures in the target environment.
Likewise, the bar graphs in the Top 10 Users with Most Failures, Top 10 Resources with Most Failures, and Top 10 Sources with Most Failures sections reveal at a single glance the top 10 users, resources and sources that encountered the maximum number of failures (see Figure 4).

Figure 4 : The graphical representation of failures encountered by top-10 users, sources and resources

A distribution pie chart in the Distribution by Failure Type section in Figure 4 reveals the percentage of each type of failure. Using this pie chart, administrators can figure out the failure type that had occurred frequently and troubleshoot issues to prevent occurrence of such failures. Clicking on a slice of pie will show the count of failures of a particular type. By merely looking at this pie chart, administrators can figure out the types of failures that were encountered by the users in the environment.
For each failure type (code), the Summary of Failures section (Figure 5) provides administrators a brief message about the failure and the count of occurrences that the failure was encountered. This analysis helps administrators in identifying the reason behind the failures and resolving them as quickly as possible.

Figure 5 : The tabular sections that provide detailed information on failures

The Details table further provides additional information such as the list of users who frequently encountered failures, the resource group and the host pool to which the users belonged to, the time at which each failure was generated, the failure message recorded etc. This information helps administrators pin-point the exact time duration within which frequent failures were logged in the target environment and initiate troubleshooting measure to reduce such connection failures.