Posts by Brian

How to monitor PCoIP performance in View 5 with WMI counters

Posted by Brian on Dec 14, 2011 in VDI, View, VMware | 0 comments

Along with the many other features that are new in VMware View 5, there are now WMI counters to monitor and report on PCoIP performance. In this post I will highlight some of the ones that I think are most valuable. At first I was kind of mixed about how I felt VMware choose to implement these features. But for those of you that have tools that can monitor Windows PC’s via WMI or are used to using Perfmon you will have no learning curve for this.

You can view these counters in Perfmon if you have access to the PC or the end user is familiar enough to help collect the data. Or if you have a tool that is capable of monitoring or collecting this data you will be able to add these to your standard monitoring rules. I plan on setting up some of the common monitoring tools in a lab when there is time and testing how they work with these new counters.

In the image below you can see the 5 new PCoIP sections that are available in Perfmon. Each of these has a number of counters that will help you monitor and trouble shoot PCoIP sessions for your View 5 users.

In the next image I am showing the counters available under the PCoIP network statistics section. This will give you details about network stats within the View session. You can monitor bandwidth, latency and packet loss for example.

On the next image I fired up a session and started to monitor the network settings for my PCoIP session. You can see below that I was looking at my latency and it was all over the board. This is because I was running from my house and the internet there is line of sight and well lets just say it sucks. But it is fairly useful for testing things like this because I get to see how they perform on bad connections.

 I have take shows of the remaining counters available for monitoring and shown them below. These counters focus on general PCoIP stats, Audio, Video/Image and USB related statistics for the View session. Over all I’m glad to see these new features added to view. Now I am waiting to see how tool makers adapter their products to take advantage of these new features. I am very eagerly waiting to get a look at vCenter Operations for View coming out in early 2012.

Update December 22, 2011:

I have listed out the different WMI classes and their explanations below. This should help you with understanding what each does.

PCoIP Network Statistics

RoundTripLatencyms	Round trip latency in milliseconds between the PCoIP server and thePCoIP client.
RXBWkbitPersec	Overall bandwidth for incoming PCoIP packets averaged over thesampling period, in seconds
RXBWPeakkbitPersec	Peak bandwidth in kilobits per second for incoming PCoIP packets over aone-second sampling period
RXPacketLossPercent	Percentage of received packets lost during a sampling period
TXBWkbitPersec	Overall bandwidth for outgoing PCoIP packets averaged over thesampling period, in seconds.
TXBWActiveLimitkbitPersec	Estimated available network bandwidth in kilobits per second. Thisstatistic is updated once per second
TXBWLimitkbitPersec	Transmission bandwidth limit in kilobits per second for outgoing packets.The limit is the minimum of the following values:n GPO bandwidth limit for the PCoIP clientn GPO bandwidth limit for the PCoIP server n Bandwidth limit for the local network connection n Negotiated bandwidth limit for the Zero Client firmware based on encryption limits
TXPacketLossPercent	Percentage of transmitted packets lost during a sampling period

 

General PCoIP Sessions Statistics

BytesReceived	Total number of bytes of PCoIP data that have been received since thePCoIP session started
BytesSent	Total number of bytes of PCoIP data that have been transmitted since thePCoIP session started
PacketsReceived	Total number of packets that have been received successfully since thePCoIP session started. Not all packets are the same size
PacketsSent	Total number of packets that have been transmitted since the PCoIPsession started. Not all packets are the same size
RXPacketsLost	Total number of received packets that have been lost since the PCoIPsession started
SessionDurationSeconds	Total number of seconds that the PCoIP Session has been open
TXPacketsLost	Total number of transmitted packets that have been lost since the PCoIPsession started.

PCoIP Audio Statistics

AudioBytesReceived	Total number of bytes of audio data that have been received since thePCoIP session started.
AudioBytesSent	Total number of bytes of audio data that have been sent since the PCoIPsession started.
AudioRXBWkbitPersec	Bandwidth for ingoing audio packets averaged over the sampling period,in seconds
AudioTXBWLimitkbitPersec	Transmission bandwidth limit in kilobits per second for outgoing audiopackets. The limit is defined by a GPO setting
AudioTXBWkbitPersec	Bandwidth for outgoing audio packets averaged over the samplingperiod, in seconds.

PCoIP Imaging Statistics

ImagingBytesReceived	Total number of bytes of imaging data that have been received since the PCoIP session started
ImagingBytesSent	Total number of bytes of imaging data that have been transmitted since the PCoIP session started.
ImagingDecoderCapabilitykbitPersec	Estimated processing capability of the imaging decoder in kilobits per second. This statistic is updated once per second
ImagingEncodedFramesPersec	Number of imaging frames that were encoded over a one-second samplingperiod.
ImagingActiveMinimumQuality	Lowest encoded quality value on a scale from 0 to 100. This statistic is updated once per second. This counter does not correspond to the GPO setting for minimum quality
ImagingRXBWkbitPersec	Bandwidth for incoming imaging packets averaged over the sampling period, in seconds.
ImagingTXBWkbitPersec	Bandwidth for outgoing imaging packets averaged over the sampling period, in seconds.

PCoIP USB Statistics

USBBytesReceived	Total number of bytes of USB data that have been received since the PCoIP session started.
USBBytesSent	Total number of bytes of USB data that have been transmitted since the PCoIP session started.
USBRXBWkbitPersec	Bandwidth for incoming USB packets averaged over the sampling period, in seconds
USBTXBWkbitPersec	Bandwidth for outgoing USB packets averaged over the sampling period, in seconds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Why the upcoming vCenter Operations Management Suite has me excited

Posted by Brian on Nov 22, 2011 in Performance, vCenter Server, vCloud, vMA, VMware | 0 comments

I would like to start off by saying that it’s nice to see VMware starting to bundle up some of their offerings into more complete packages. Many of these tools were acquired recently and it takes time to integrate them with their own applications. I have not looked recently to see if there is any price advantage to buying the bundle versus the apps separately. The main thing is that they continue to add functionality by tightly integrating the apps to work together.

The new vCenter Operations Management Suite has 4 versions available for the package, you can view the table here to compare versions. The highest version available is the Enterprise Plus, it looks like maybe VMware is starting to standardize on their version naming to match what vSphere has been using for years. This version offers the performance monitoring of vCOPs, Infrastructure Navigator, Chargeback manager and Configuration Manager. Until recently you would normally have to purchase these all separately and the cost was per VM based and could be pretty expensive for large environments.

One of the features that has me most excited was the integration between configuration manager and vCOPs. I saw a demo and cannot find it again right now. It showed that when viewing a host for example that is experiencing a performance issue you can correlate the change in performance with any configuration changes that took place at the same time the issue started. So if another team member or maybe yourself was updating a value on network cards and it did not produce any noticeable errors during the change. But vCOPs was tracking a change in performance the new suite will help brings these 2 separate tracks of information together to help fix issues and find root causes faster. Once I can find the screen shot again I will try to remember to update this post with it.

 

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What could vCenter Operations for VMware View mean or help with – vCOPs

Posted by Brian on Nov 20, 2011 in Performance, VDI, View, VMware | 0 comments

The world is just now starting to get a glimpse of what vCenter Operations for View could be like. I really hope that this product comes out of the gate with a strong feature set and delivers a big win for VMware. This would really strengthen their VDI offering.

The ability to monitor performance of the connections between the endpoints and the VMs running in the data center is a vital metric that needs to be tackled by VMware. This is something that Citrix is already delivering with XenDesktop and I like what they are doing so far. You can see the latency measurement between the connection and also information like client version, IP addresses and broker that it connected through. All very helpful information for troubleshooting performance and connection issues.

I like the fact that VMware has added counters for Windows that can be monitored using Perfmon inside the OS, and you can always fire this up to look at something. But I think this needs to continue to develop further to make these connection and performance issues easy to continually monitor and troubleshoot. In the preview videos that VMware posted on this blog post are mostly centered around monitoring the infrastructure, this is what vCOPs already does. The last video did show some tasty nugguets about PCoIP monitoring which looks promising. But some type of a client summary page would be very helpful so Admins do not have to drill down into 10 screens to get the picture unless they want that level of detail. It also needs to provide performance monitoring for client connections and end user experience. Below is a list of things that I think would be very helpful in a VMware View deployment to monitor.

• PCoIP connection latency
• VM login times
• Client version
• Connection server client is connected through
• Connection type (PCoIP vs. RDP)

 

Below is a sample of what Citrix is offering today with their XenDesktop product. From this session screen you can shadow session which I wish VMware would add into View Manager. Then there are details about latency, connection type, endpoint details, which items are enabled within the HDX/ICA protocol. Overall a pretty good looking and helpful console from Citrix.

The lower part of the same screen shows you some hypervisor and broker health status. There is a simple graph that shows you CPU, Memory and Network usage for the VM that you are looking at.

 

 

 

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VMware needs to integrate Orchestrator into vCloud Director more to improve Cloud automation

Posted by Brian on Nov 17, 2011 in Cloud, Orchestrator, vCloud, VMware | 0 comments

In working on several Cloud related projects one of the items that sticks out to me is the need for deeper automation within the vCloud Director product. I understand this is still just version 1.5, but with how hard VMware is pushing the “Your Cloud” journey. I think that some parts are just not ready for what some companies need to do in the way of automation.

If self-service is suppose to be such a big part of Cloud, then the need for automation is going to play a big part. Not everything can be accomplished from creating templates and using customization to change the identity of the new VM. In server virtualization this worked great and saved time for most IT shops. But there were still manual processes that some shops needed to do. This breaks the idea of self-service IT, if a user still relies on someone to execute a manual process to have a VM or application provisioned from vCloud.

I guess what this mostly deals with is private cloud. Many IT shops are trying to automate the creation of as many servers and platforms as possible, to reduce their work load in provisioning new servers. But there are still some manual processes that need to take place and I think that being able to tie vCenter Orchestrator more tightly with vCloud Director could go a long way in help this issue.

Other cloud software companies such as DynamicOps are already doing this type of thing. By making the workflow or automation part of their offerings built into the same admin console. This allows for tight integration and opens up the options for what you are allowed to automate.

If you listen to rumors and in dark alleys you might hear that this type of integration is coming from VMware in a future release. Nobody knows if it will be the next release or even when that will happen.

 

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VDI desktop assessment sample report from Stratusphere FIT

Posted by Brian on Nov 15, 2011 in VDI | 0 comments

If you are thinking about starting or are currently working on a VDI project, you need to do some type of assessment on your current desktops. Without collecting performance and usage data from your current PCs you will only be guessing what on how to design your infrastructure for VDI.

If you are guessing or making too many assumptions about your users, the design is going to either be extremely over solution-ed or will perform badly. By doing your homework you are collecting the data that will allow you to make intelligent decisions on CPU, disk and network performance that will be required.

There are a few applications on the market that do this type of desktop assessment, Liquidware Labs and Lakeside Software are the leaders in this space. In this post I am showing the more valuable slides from the presentation that is created by the Stratusphere Fit tool after collecting data from your PCs.

To deploy the tool you only need to import a Virtual Appliance and assign it an IP address and DNS name. You then export a collection install file that needs to be pushed out or installed on any computer that you wish to collect data from. You can create user and machine groups for different use cases or any logical grouping that might tie in with your design or business case.

I have pasted slides from the presentation below and have made some notes around a few of the slides. This is a sample report that I created using a test environment. There was no grouping setup so a few slides were removed that would present data based on groups. This is just to provide an idea of what type of data you can get by doing an assessment and what Liquidware Labs can help you with.

Besides the presentation below there are a number of built in reports that you can pull or schedule to run on a reoccurring basis. There are several output formats that you can export reports in such as PDF, Excel and Word, among others. There is a good report that will give you summaries of user data and types of files being stored. This is very helpful when planning for profile storage.

The slide below is the opening image that you can customize with Vendor and Customer information.

This slide shows details about the scope of the assessment, such as date range, number of desktops, users and groups.

The slide below shows some of the ranges of how decisions for the Fit ratings will be calculated.

The slide below is showing the number of computers and which group they were placed in.

The slide below is showing peak and averages for all desktops and the different metrics that are measured.

The slide below is probably my favorite one. It shows the averages for all desktops hourly for a week day. So you can see the IOPs are high first thing in the morning when users are logging in and then look for other details that will aid in your design.

The next slide is showing details about the physical desktops, such as age, CPU and Memory usage.

The next slide gives details about the different CPUs that are in your desktops and their utilization.

The next slide covers the physical memory configuration in the desktops.

 

The next slide gives a breakdown of what Operating System is installed on the desktops being monitored.

 

The next slide covers local storage on the desktops. You will get a rough idea of sizes and how much data is being used. Note: there are much more detailed reports that can be run to find out more about user data.

 

The following slide covers devices connected to PCs, you can see that a lot of local or built in devices show up on this report also.

 

The following slide covers monitors and printers.

The next slide shows a summary of the most used applications.

The next slide shows applications that are used most based on time.

The next slide is application related and covers CPU utilization.

 

Now an application view related to memory consumed.

 

And finally an application view that relates to IO consumed.

 

The next slide is showing applications and a graphics intensity rating.

The next slide shows a view on how your desktops are for VDI candidates.

The next slide is showing how your users will fit as VDI candidates.

The next slide is covering how different applications qualify as Virtualization candidates.

 

 

 

 

The next slide is showing a list of machines and highlighting PCs that are on the bubbles or are not good candidates for VDI.

The next slide is showing a list of Users and highlighting user accounts that are on the bubbles or are not good candidates for VDI.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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