Lab Preparation
Overview
Because of the nature of lab environments, you must take several steps to prepare for the following exercises. First, stop a service on DC2 to generate a specific alert in the Operations Console and then launch a video within XenApp & XenDesktop sessions to generate load.
Step by step guidance
Estimated time to complete this exercise: 10 minutes.
Step Action
1. From the Student Desktop, launch Remote Desktop Connection Manager.
2. Double-click DC2 to connect to the DC2 desktop.
3. From the DC2 desktop, click Start.
4. From the Start screen, type services to search and then click Services when it appears.
5. In order to generate an alert in the SCOM console, we will stop the broker service on DC2.
From the Services window select the Citrix Broker Service and then click Stop.
6. From the Student Desktop launch Internet Explorer.
7. In Internet Explorer, navigate to http://connect.training.lab/Citrix/StoreWeb.
8. Log in as administrator with password Citrix123.
9. Launch the Windows 81 Desktop.
10. From the Windows 81 Desktop Start Screen, click Desktop.
11. Launch Internet Explorer.
12. In Internet Explorer, navigate to weather.com.
13. In the Citrix Receiver – Flash dialog box, select No, don’t optimize content and click OK.
14. On the weather.com website, scroll down and play a video. By selecting a video, the website will cycle through the available videos, putting a load on the system.
15. Switch back to Internet Explorer on the Student Desktop. Do not minimize the Windows 81 Desktop session.
16. Click Apps at the bottom.
17. Launch Iexplore.
18. In the new Internet Explorer session, navigate to weather.com.
19. In the Citrix Receiver – Flash dialog box, select No, don’t optimize content and click OK.
20. On the weather.com website, scroll down and play a video. By selecting a video, the website will cycle through the available videos, putting a load on the system.
21. Keep both the Windows 81 Desktop Session and the Internet Explorer session running and do not minimize their windows.
Exercise 1: Broker Service Availability
Overview
This section is to show you how easy it is to identify a stopped service and how to get it restarted.
View the topology that is automatically discovered by the Management Pack and kept up to date.
Use the Health Explorer to drill down to root cause events.
Visualize the alert from the XenApp/XenDesktop MP to show that the service has stopped.
Go to the XAXD service alert and restart the service
Step by step guidance
Estimated time to complete this exercise: 10 minutes.
Step Action
1. Switch to the Remote Desktop Connection Manager.
2. Double-click scom to connect to the SCOM desktop.
3. Launch the Operations Console.
4. Select Monitoring in the lower left corner of the Operations Console.
5. Expand the Comtrade Citrix Library plugin and select the Comtrade Citrix Management Topology. This will show you the discovered topology of the Citrix environment along with the status.
6. Drill down to through the different objects in the topology to visualize what is automatically discovered by the Comtrade Management Packs.
7. Right click on the “XAXD Sites” object in the topology and select Health Explorer.
This will bring up a new window that will show you the root cause of why the topology is showing there is a problem with the top-level object.
8. Select the Broker Services Status – CitrixSite1 (XAXD Site) object in the tree. Review the error description on the right-hand side of the screen.
9. Right-click on the Broker Services Status – CitrixSite1 (XAXD Site) object in the left panel and select View Alerts for CitrixSite1… to bring up the alerts.
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10. Double-click the DC2.training.lab critical alert.
11. Review the General, Product Knowledge and Alert Context tabs to get the details about the alert.
12. From the Product Knowledge tab, click Start the Service to restart the service.
Additionally, the service can be started by selecting the message, the topology object or the service listed under the Comtrade Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop-> Controller->
Delivery Controller Services and selecting the “Start Service” task on the right hand side.
13. In the Run Task – Start Service dialog, click Run.
14. Verify the Start Service task complete successfully and click Close.
15. Close the Alert Properties dialog box and the Alerts Window. Optionally you can wait to see that the alert clears itself.
Exercise Summary
This exercise shows you how easy it is to identify a problem and to resolve an issue. Although this was a simple task, it does highlight how easy it is to use the Comtrade MPs. In addition, if you are already familiar with SCOM and Management Packs, you can see that this functions just like any other management pack.
Additionally, this highlights that the operations staff can handle the day-to-day issues that occur in a Citrix environment without having to get the Citrix Administrator involved.
Exercise 2: Health State Views
Overview
Review health State for XAXD
o Describe each of the screens and the detailed view
Show how Health Explorer can be used on each of the views
Step by step guidance
Estimated time to complete this exercise: 10 minutes.
Step Action
1. From the Operation Console, expand the Comtrade Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop plug-in and select XenApp/XenDesktop Health State.
Step Action
2. Note the 4 separate screens in the result pane to give you a complete overview of the health of the environment:
The Site State, Delivery Controller State and Delivery Group State show the health of each of the components configured in the environment.
The hypervisor Connection state shows that the XD environment can connect to the hypervisor. This is hypervisor agnostic and does not depend on which hypervisor you use in your environment.
3. Right click on any one of the objects and mouse over Open, click Health Explorer for …
Step Action
4. The Health Explorer window will open. Click on the X next to “Scope is only unhealthy child monitors”.
This will allow you to navigate through all of the monitors for that particular object.
5. Review the Health Monitors for you selected object.
6. Close Health Explorer.
Exercise Summary
Health dashboards are a great way to get immediate status information about the environment.
These dashboards also allow you to navigate via the health explorer to get to the root cause of what is causing a problem or to view the rules that are monitoring a particular object.
Exercise 3: Logon Process Monitoring
Overview
This section will highlight the logon process monitoring of the Management Pack. The Management Pack monitors 8 separate logon phases that occur during the logon process.
As users log into the environment, the Comtrade MP monitors each user and how long it takes them to log into the environment.
Earlier you created two sessions. The system has logged how long it took you to log into the environment so you can visualize your logon’s. If there was a problem in any one of the phases or with the total logon time, an alert would be generated.
Step by step guidance
Estimated time to complete this exercise: 20 minutes.
Step Action
1. From the Operations Console window, expand the Comtrade Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop plug-in and select XenApp/XenDesktop Alerts.
2. Double-click one of the logon alerts (please note that we set some threshold values low to generate this alert just for these exercises).
3. Review the information on the General tab. Click the Alert Context tab.
4. The Alert Context tab provides the user name and how long it took them to log in (total time) and each of the logon phases. This will help you identify where a user was having a problem during their logon process. Click the Product Knowledge tab.
5. The Product Knowledge tab provides details of what occurs during each login phase and information on how to troubleshoot and resolve issues.
6. Close the Alert Properties window.
7. Select Reporting in the lower left of the Operations Console.
8. Select the Comtrade Management pack for Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop (EndUser) Reports. You may have to expand the navigation pane to locate this object.
9. Double-click User- Logon Activity (Troubleshooting) to run this report.
10. In the report window, select TRAINING\Administrator for the User Name. Select First day of this month as the From date and Today as the to date. Click Run.
11. The report will generate, displaying logon duration for each phase of logon activity.
Review the report.
12. Close the report window.
13. Explore the other End User reports. Look at the report descriptions by selecting the report (single click) and view the details at the bottom of the page.
One report to take note:
The Delivery Group – Logons per week (Plan & Manage) - use a time range from the beginning of March until today.
Exercise Summary
The Management Pack monitors the logon process for each user and identifies 8 separate phases of the logon process. These metrics can be used to identify particular problems during a user’s logon.
Exercise 4: Delivery Groups
Overview
Delivery Groups
o Show how the Comtrade MP automatically discovers the XA/XD environment and keeps the topology up to date.
o Delivery Group state
Describe the value of this screen and the detailed view o Explore the Performance views for the delivery groups
Step by step guidance
Estimated time to complete this exercise: 20 minutes.
Step Action
1. Click Monitoring in the lower left corner of the Operations Console.
2. Select Comtrade Citrix Management Topology under the Comtrade Citrix Library.
3. Click the + sign to expand the tree underneath CitrixSite1.
4. Click the + sign to see the services under DC1.training.lab or DC2.training.lab
5. Expand Applications and then Excel 2013 to view the delivery group and servers that are publishing the application.
6. Expand the CitrixSite1 to see the Delivery Groups and the connectivity to the hypervisor.
7. Expand the Comtrade Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop plug-in and Delivery Groups.
Select Applications to view the applications being published.
8. If any of the applications were unhealthy you could view any of the following by right-clicking and selecting the Open menu:
o Alert view to see the alerts
o Diagram View to see the delivery group and the servers in the delivery group
o Event View to see the events from the event log o Performance View to see the performance statistics
o Health Explorer to get to the root cause of what is causing the object to change it status
9. Click on Reporting in the lower left-hand portion of the Operations Console.
10. Select the Comtrade Management pack for Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop Reports.
11. Review and launch some of these reports to become familiar with them. Each report will display a description at the bottom when selected.
Some reports to note:
Delivery Group – Active Session (Top N): This report shows you which delivery groups have the most active sessions
Delivery Group – Active Session (Trending): Looks at a specific Delivery Group to show you the over Active Session trending information and will draw a trend line over the selected date range and project out into the future the trend based on historical data.
Delivery Group Desktop OS Random – Ready Pool Setting Optimizer: Based on historical data shows the desktop usage by time of day. This reports helps you determine your optimal settings for your Ready Pool setting.
Exercise Summary
This exercise provided you with an overview of the delivery groups’ health, utilization and performance. Not only can you get specifics of what is happening now, but you can also see
historical information to help you with your planning and optimization of the environment through the reports.
Exercise 5: Machines
Overview
This section will show you how to gain insight into what is going on with the VDI’s in terms of registration and the performance and health of your OS Machines.
The Comtrade MP monitors the OS Machines remotely. A data collector is not required on the OS Server machines. This data is gathered by a Proxy node and fed up to the SCOM management server.
One of the common issues is where the desktop fails to register. Citrix views VDI’s that are starting up are in the unregistered state (which is normal). Sometimes these desktops fail to finish the registration process and therefore are “Unregistered Desktops”. The Comtrade MP identifies these unregistered desktops by monitoring the desktops from the start of the VDI until it becomes
registered. If the desktop never registers, it will be flagged as an unregistered Desktop.
Step by step guidance
Estimated time to complete this exercise: 15 minutes.
Step Action
1. From the Operations Console, click Monitoring.
2. Expand Machines under Comtrade Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop. Select Failed Registrations.
This view gives you a view of the current unregistered desktops. If there were any unregistered desktops, the alerts would be shown here. By selecting the alert you can see the details about the unregistered desktop as well as some links to articles that will help you resolve your registration issues. Due to the difficulty in generating a Failed registration, the lab does not have any registration failures, but we wanted to show you where these would show up if they were to occur.
3. The MP monitors for other issues with the Server OS Machines. Select Server OS Machine Alerts to see if there are any alerts.
4. Double-click the Server OS Machine CPU Utilization alert and view the alert details.
5. Navigate through the tabs. The Product Knowledge tab has suggestions on how to resolve the issue.
6. Now we will demonstrate the ease of overriding a threshold value.
Close the alert. Right-click on the Server OS Machine CPU Utilization alert and select Overrides -> Override the Rule -> For all objects of class: Comtrade MPXAXD Machine Agent Proxy Computer Role.
7. You will see that the Threshold parameter is already checked. Type in 70 as the Override Value for the Threshold override. Click OK. Now the threshold value has been changed for all instances of the OS Server Machines.
8. From the navigation pane, select Server OS Machine Performance. This view allows you to graph and compare the Citrix Load Index for the OS Machines.
9. The Server OS Machines view shows the health and details of each of the Server OS Machines. Check the box under Show for CitrixSite1 at the bottom of the window.
The graph will now be displayed:
Exercise Summary
This section gave you a quick overview the features in the MP to view Registration failures and to get health and performance information about the Server OS Machines.