Server OS Machines Test

Server OS Machines are VMs or physical machines based on the Windows Server operating system used for delivering applications or hosted shared desktops to users.

This test auto-discovers the Server OS Machines in the site and reports the session load on, resource usage of, and current state of each machine. This way, administrators can quickly identify machines that are experiencing heavy load and those that are consuming resources abnormally.

Target of the test : A Citrix Director 7.x

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each server OS machine running in the XenDesktop broker site

Configurable parameters for the test
  1. Test period - How often should the test be executed
  2. Host - The host for which the test is to be configured.
  3. port – The port number at which the specified HOST listens to. By default, this is 80.
  4. controller ip address – Specify the IP address of the delivery controller (i.e., broker) in the site with which the eG agent should communicate for collecting performance metrics.
  5. controller port – Specify the port number of the delivery controller (i.e., broker) in the site with which the eG agent should communicate for collecting performance metrics.
  6. USERNAME and password – To connect to a delivery controller and pull out metrics from it, the eG agent requires Farm Administrator rights. In order to configure the eG agent with Farm Administrator privileges, specify the credentials of the Farm Administrator in the username and password text boxes.
  7. CONFIRM PASSWORD – Confirm the PASSWORD by retyping it here.
  8. fully qualified DOMAIN name – Here, specify the fully-qualified name of the domain to which the specified controller belongs.
  9. ssl – Indicate whether/not the controller used for metrics collection  is SSL-enabled. By default, this flag is set to Yes.
  10. report by delivery group – If you want the results of this test to be grouped by delivery group then set this flag to Yes. In this case therefore, the delivery groups containing the server OS machines will be the primary descriptors of this test; expanding them will reveal the secondary descriptors – i.e., the server OS machines in each delivery group. If you want the results of this test to be indexed only by the names of the server OS machines, then set this flag to No.

  11. 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

Power state:

Indicates the current power state of this server OS machine.

 

The values this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are listed in then table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Unknown 0
Unavailable 1
Off 2
On 3
Suspended 4
Turning on 5
Turning Off 6
Suspending 7
Resuming 8
Unmanaged 9

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values in the table above to indicate the power state of a server OS machine. However, in the graph of this measure, the same will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Maintenance mode:

Indicates whether/not this machine is in the maintenance mode currently.

 

The values this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are listed in then table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Off 0
On 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values in the table above to indicate whether/not a server OS machine is in the maintenance mode. However, in the graph of this measure, the same will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Pending image update:

Indicates whether/not image updates are pending on this machine.

 

The values this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are listed in then table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
No 0
Yes 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values in the table above to indicate whether/not image updates are pending on this server OS machine. However, in the graph of this measure, the same will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Is this physical machine?:

Indicates whether this server OS machine is a physical or virtual machine.

 

The values this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are listed in then table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
No 0
Yes 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values in the table above to indicate whether/not a server OS machine is a physical machine. However, in the graph of this measure, the same will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Total sessions:

Indicates the total number of user sessions on this server OS machine.

Number

This is a good indicator of the current session load on a server OS machine. Compare the value of this measure across machines to know which machine is overloaded with sessions.

Load evaluator index:

Indicates the load evaluator index of this machine.

Percent

 A server’s load index may be the aggregate of:

  • Various computer performance counter based metrics, namely CPU, Memory and Disk Usage
  • Session Count

It is designed to indicate how suitable a XenApp Worker is to receive a new user session. It is the Delivery Controller’s responsibility to calculate the load index based on the aggregate of the normalized load rule indexes generated by the various load rules. As only the Delivery Controller can determine the session load, a server’s overall load index is calculated on the Delivery Controller and not the Virtual Delivery Agent.

By comparing the value of this measure across server OS machines, you can figure out whether or not load is uniformly balanced across all servers in the site.

CPU:

Indicates the CPU load evaluator index of this server OS machine.

Percent

A high value is indicative of excessive CPU usage by the machine over time.

Memory:

Indicates the memory load evaluator index of this server OS machine.

Percent

A high value is indicative of excessive memory usage by the machine over time.

Disk:

Indicates the disk load evaluator index of this server OS machine.

Percent

A high value is indicative of excessive disk usage by the machine over time.

Session count:

Indicates the session count load evaluator index of this server OS machine.

Percent

A high value indicates that the machine has been consistently handling many user sessions.

Registration state

Indicates whether this server OS machine is registered or not.

 

The values this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are listed in then table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Unknown 0
Registered 1
Unregistered 2

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values in the table above to indicate whether/not each machine is registered or not. However, in the graph of this measure, the same will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.