Applications - Usage by Hosts Report

When planning the future capacity of their critical Azure Virtual Desktop environments, administrators need to consider how the applications published on the Azure Virtual Desktop environments have been utilized in the past, so that the future load on the AVD environment can be accurately predicted, load-balancing rules appropriately changed, and capacity decisions accordingly taken. The Applications - Usage by Hosts report provides administrators with the application usage insights that they require for taking these crucial capacity decisions. With the help of this report, administrators can tell:

The total number of instances of an application that were accessed by users to the AVD environment in the specified timeline;
The number of requests for a chosen application that were serviced by each server in AVD environment during the said timeline

Besides revealing the total load (in terms of usage) an application generated on the AVD environment during the given timeline, this report also sheds light on load-balancing irregularities in the AVD environment, which will have to be looked into to maximum AVD environment's performance.

To generate this report, do the following:

Select the Usage by Hosts option by following the menu sequence: REPORTS BY FUNCTION -> Domain-specific Reports ->Azure Virtual Desktop -> By Host Pool -> Applications
When Figure 1 appears, do the following:

Figure 1 : Generating the Applications - Usage by Hosts report
Select a criterion for analysis from the Analyze By list box. Using this report, you can analyze the application utilization on one/more independent virtualized components, or those that are part of a segment, service, or a zone. This way, you can assess the utilization impact of the applications hosted on the virtual components of a particular service/segment/zone, and accordingly take decisions. The options provided by the Analyze By list box are discussed hereunder:
- Component : Select this option to choose the component(s) from across all the managed host pools in the target AVD environment. For instance, for a report on the utilization of the application hosted on all the managed Microsoft AVD Host Pools in the environment, select Microsoft AVD Host Pool from the Component Type list, and then select all the AVD host pools listed in the Host Pool list. If the Host Pool list consists of too many AVD Host Pools, then viewing all the AVD host pools and selecting the ones you need for report generation could require endless scrolling. To avoid this, you can click the button next to the Host Poollist. The HOST POOL pop up window will then appear using which you can view almost all the AVD Host Pools in a single interface and Select the ones for which the report is to be generated. You can narrow your search further by using the Search text box. Specify the whole/part of the AVD Host Pool name to search for in this text box, and click the icon next to it.
- Service : Select this option if the host pools for which a report is to be generated are involved in the delivery of a business service. Then, select a Service.
- Segment : Choose this option if the host pools to be evaluated are part of a segment. Then, pick a Segment for analysis.
- Zone : Pick this option for a report on the performance of host pools that are included in a zone. Then, choose a Zone. 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.
Once the host pools to be included for generating the report are selected from the Host Pool combo box, the applications published on the chosen host pools will be populated in the Application drop-down list. Now, select the application of your interest, the usage of which is to be analyzed by generating this report.
By default, the check box preceding the Show Legends field will be checked indicating that the legends will be displayed when you hover over the graph that is generated as part of the report. If you do not wish to view the legends upon hovering over the graph, you can uncheck this check box.
Then, specify the Timeline for the graph. 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 an Application. 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 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 an Application usage report by hosts
Specify the start time and end time for report generation against the Time period field (see Figure 2).

Note:

The default Time period to be displayed here can be configured using the consolidated reports page in the eG administrative interface; to access this page, follow the menu sequence: Settings -> Reporter -> Consolidated Reports. For more details regarding this page, refer to Consolidated Reports.
By default, the Chart Type flag is set as Area indicating that the graph will be plotted as an area chart in the generated report. However, if you wish that the graph should be plotted as a line chart in the generated report, then set the Chart Type flag to Line.
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, select the Background Save - PDF 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 Save - PDF. 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.
Finally, click the Run Report button to generate the report.

Figure 3 : The report showing the usage of Google Chrome application on the host pools

Figure 4 : The report showing the usage of SmartScreen application on the host pools
The report in Figure 3 plots the cumulative values of the number of instances of the chosen application that were accessed by users to the host pools during the given timeline. As you can see, this report plots values in a 'stack format', so that users can easily determine total usage and per-server usage in a single glance.