User Input Delay - OS Test

One of the most difficult problems to diagnose by the administrators on cloud PCs is the poor performance of the applications installed. Traditionally, diagnosis was done by collecting CPU, memory, disk I/O and a few other metrics. The data collected from traditional metrics were not sufficient to figure out the root cause of poor performance of the applications on the cloud PC since the variations measured by the metrics were large. Let's say, the user input (e.g. keyboard clicks and mouse clicks) sits in the input queue on the cloud PC host for longer duration until the input is picked up for processing by an application’s message queue. In such a case, the User Input Delay starts increasing because the cloud PC is under load, it means the slowness has been introduced on the cloud PC (and is not due to the network). This could be a sign that user experience is degrading to the point where administrators might want to add more hosts or increase the instance size of your hosts. Therefore, it is necessary for administrators to measure the user input flows or rather user input delays while the applications are being accessed. This can be easily measured using the User Input Delay - OS test!

This test captures such user input delays at each cloud PC and reports the same to the administrators. With the help of this test, administrators can determine the maximum and average time taken by the applications to respond to the user input at the cloud PC, and thus figure out if there is any time delay in responses from applications. In addition, these metrics help administrators to differentiate desktop-side issues from network issues.

Note:

This test will report measures only on cloud PCs running Windows 2010 or above.

Target of the test : A Windows 365 Cloud PCs Group

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the each cloud PC in the Windows 365 Cloud PCs Group that is being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The nick name of the Windows 365 Cloud PCs Group component for which this test is to be configured.

Port

Refers to the port at which the specified host listens to. By default, this is NULL.

Report Powered OS

If this flag is set to Yes (which is the default setting), then the 'inside view' tests will report measures for even those Cloud PCs that do not have any users logged in currently. Such PCs will be identified by their name and not by the username_on_CloudPCName. On the other hand, if this flag is set to No, then this test will not report measures for those Cloud PCs to which no users are logged in currently.  

Report By User

This flag is set to Yes by default. The value of this flag cannot be changed. This implies that the Cloud PCs in environments will always be identified using the login name of the user. In other words, this test will, by default, report measures for every username_on_CloudPCName.

DD Frequency

Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 2:1. 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

Maximum input delay

Indicates the maximum amount of time lag detected between the user's input through any input device (e.g., mouse, keyboard) and the time at which the application responds to the input.

Seconds

Ideally, the values of these measures should be 0 or very low.

To know exactly which user/application experiences the maximum input lag, you can refer to the detailed diagnosis revealed by these measures.

Average input delay

Indicates the average amount of time lag detected between the user's input through any input device (e.g., mouse, keyboard) and the time at which the application detected the input.

Seconds