Horizon Connection Server Details Test

If users complain that they are unable to access their desktops/applications, then administrators should quickly figure out what could have caused the inaccessibility - is it because the gateway appliance itself is unavailable? Or is it because, the appliance is unable to reach the Horizon Connection Server managing those desktops/applications? Using the Horizon Connection Server Details test, administrators can periodically check the availability and responsiveness of every Horizon Connection Server with which the target gateway appliance interacts, accurately isolate the unavailable brokers, and thus figure out if the broker unavailability has contributed to the inaccessibility issues that users are experiencing.

Target of the test : A Horizon Unified Access Gateway

Agent deploying the test: An external agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each VMware Horizon Connection server connected to the target Horizon Unified Access Gateway

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters	Description
Test Period	This indicates how often should the test be executed.
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured.
Port	Refers to the port used by the Horizon Unified Access Gateway appliance. By default, this is 9443.
Username, Password, Confirm Password	This test emulates a user accessing the HTTP/S URL of a connection server, and in the process, reports the availability and responsiveness of that server. To establish this connection and report metrics, the test requires read-only permissions. Therefore, configure the credentials of a read-only user in the Username and Password parameters. Confirm the Password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.
SSL	By default, the appliance is SSL-enabled. This is why, the SSL flag is set to Yes by default. In case the appliance is not SSL-enabled, then set this flag to No.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Web availability	Indicates whether/not this connection server responded successfully to the HTTP/S request from the target gateway appliance.	Percent	The value 100 for this measure indicates the availability of the connection server, and the value 0 indicates non-availability. A quick look at the values reported by this measure across connection servers will help you swiftly identify the connection servers that are unavailable and have hence failed to respond to connection requests from the gateway appliance. Availability failures could be caused by several factors such as the connection server process(es) being down, the connection server being misconfigured, a network failure, etc. Temporary unavailability may also occur if the web server is overloaded. Availability is determined based on the response code returned by the server. A response code between 200 to 300 indicates that the server is available.
Data transfer time	Indicates the time taken for a data transfer between target gateway appliance and this connection server.	Secs	If the value of this measure is unusually high, it could denote a problem.
Content length	The size of the content returned by this connection server.	KB	Typically the content length returned by the server for a specific URL should be the same across time. Any change in this metric may indicate the need for further investigation on the connection server side.
Content validity	This measure validates whether this connection server was successful in executing the request made to it.	Percent	A value of 100% indicates that the content returned by the test is valid. A value of 0% indicates that the content may not be valid. This capability for content validation is especially important. This is because, the gateway may have hit the connection server's URL successfully, but the connection server may reply back with an invalid HTML page, where an error message may have been reported. In this case, the Web availability measure will be 100 % (since we got a valid HTML response), but the Content validity measure will return the value 0.
Response code	The response code returned by the server for the simulated request.	Number	A value between 200 and 300 indicates a good response. A 4xx value indicates a problem with the requested content (eg., page not found). A 5xx value indicates a server error.
Total response time	Indicates the time taken by this connection server to respond to the requests it receives from the target gateway appliance	Secs	Response time being high denotes a problem. Poor response times may be due to the server being overloaded or misconfigured.
Server response time	This measure indicates the time period between when the connection was established with this connection server and when the server sent back a HTTP response header to the monitored gateway appliance.	Secs	While the total response time may depend on several factors, the server response time is typically, a very good indicator of a server bottleneck (e.g., because all the available server threads or processes are in use).
TCP connect time	This measure quantifies the time for establishing a TCP connection to this connection server host.	Secs	Typically, the TCP connection establishment time must be very small (of the order of a few milliseconds). Since TCP connection establishment is handled at the OS-level, rather than by the application, an increase in this value signifies a system-level bottleneck on the host that supports the connection server.
TCP connection availability	This measure indicates whether the test managed to establish a TCP connection to this connection server.	Percent	Failure to establish a TCP connection may imply that either the connection server process is not up, or that the process is not operating correctly. In some cases of extreme overload, the failure to establish a TCP connection may be a transient condition. As the load subsides, the server may start functioning properly again.