April 12, 20231

The eG VDI MonitorTM

Real-Time Monitoring & Automated Triage

for Virtual Desktop Infrastructures

http://www.eginnovations.com

April 12, 20232

VDI Monitoring Challenges

VDI is Multi-Tiered, End-to-End Service

37September 2009 eG Innovations Inc All Rights Reserved

April 12, 2023

What Makes VDI Challenging?

• VDI is mission-critical: a single server going down can bring down 100s of desktops

• VDI must be “right-sized” to ensure service levels are met without over provisioning

• Multiple software/hardware elements from multiple vendors must all work together

• A failure in one component can lead to alerts from multiple components – where is the cause and where is the effect?

• VDI offers a service: end-users reports slowness, disconnects, etc. which have to be diagnosed

• Its not just about the network, the desktop, the XenServer, the storage device

VDI Monitoring Today

57September 2009 eG Innovations Inc All Rights Reserved

Remote Desktop

Thin Client

LAN

Connection Brokers

Virtualization

vSphere vCenter

Database

SAN

Active DirectorySMS

Thin Client Device Manager

Storage

Desktop Team Network Team

Virtualization Team

DBA TeamWindows Team

Storage Team

April 12, 2023

Monitoring Silos Don’t Work

End User to VDI Admin

Client Admin

LAN Admin

Firewall/Network admin

Server admin

VMware admin

Domain admin

SQL Admin Broker admin

ApplicationAdmin

The serveris working

OK

No othercomplaints

All lights Are green

We don’t see

anythingwrong

Database Admin

Hey, this is not

working

VMs are lightly loaded

EverythingIs OK

Not ourproblem

Looks fine Not mine

either

Talk tothe other

guys

Siloed organizations result in the “It’s not me!” syndrome

April 12, 2023

Virtual Server Monitoring Solutions Cannot Monitor VDI

Virtual Server Monitoring Solutions

• Monitor the Virtualization platform only – not the connection brokers, storage, network, profile servers, terminal servers, …

• Monitor VMs and not users:

• No way to map a user to a VM

• Workload of VM dependent on who is logged in

• Monitors a desktop from the outside (black box!):

• No understanding of what is happening inside the desktop

• What applications are running?

• Is high CPU usage because of load or a faulting application?

Virtual Desktop Monitoring = Virtual Server Monitoring

April 12, 20238

Monitoring & Diagnosing VDIAn Example

Monitoring VDI Service Performance

Response time metrics for the VDI service: PQN_TRADING

Some of the transactions are very slow

Clicking on any of these transactions displays the service topology diagram for this VDI service

Monitoring the VDI Service End-to-End

• Know which tier of a business service is impacted

The dependency arrows and color coding make it clear that a problem in the virtualization layer which is impacting the service performance.

Analyzing a Specific VDI Tier

• Know where layer the root-cause of a problem lies:

The virtualization platform looks fine. The outside view of the VMs do not reveal any issues.

Something is wrong with the virtual desktops layer.

Monitoring Users and their Desktops

• Know which desktops are affected

Two of the desktops are seeing problems. Click on a desktop for details.

Investigating INSIDE a Virtual Desktop

• Know why a desktop is seeing poor performance

In this case, we are seeing 25% retransmits. This is likely to cause slow performance and screen freezes!

The eG INSIDE view provides an indicator of the problem. Analysis of network performance helped identify a speed mismatch between the desktop interface and the router.

TCP retransmits from a desktop should be 0-5% for good performance.

Identifying the Root-Cause

All of the alert conditions we have stepped through are actually summarized in one screen: the eG Enterprise alarm console.

Color coding clearly distinguishes the root-cause from the effects.

The root-cause of the problem

The effect of the problem

Knowing Who is Using Resources

• Identify desktops that are using a lot of resources

A user “sandy” is logged in to esx103_dt and is taking up an unusually high amount of CPU – 35% of the physical CPU of a 8 CPU system!

Identifying the Root-Cause• Know why the desktop is utilizing high CPU

sandy is running Windows Media Player – probably watching a movie and using up a high % of the CPU available on the VDI server!

eG’s inside view provides information that is useful for problem diagnosis. This information is also useful for planning – to determine which applications should be allowed in a VDI environment.

April 12, 202319

eG’s Key Technologies

Slide 20 © 2007 eG Innovations Inc All Rights Reserved April 12, 2023

In-N-Out MonitoringTM for Virtual Desktops

Monitor from the outside (VM metrics)

Monitor from the inside (desktop and app metrics)

Provides a 360 degree view of each and every virtual desktop

April 12, 2023

eG Universal Agent Simplifies Deployment

•A single agent license for Microsoft, Linux, Sun Solaris, HPUX,IBM AIX, VMware, Tru64

•A single price, regardless of OS or server configuration - 2, 4, 8, 16 CPUs

•A single agent for monitoring any application

•A single price to manage multiple applications on the same server

•Auto-upgradeable

•Agentless monitoring option

•100% web-based – HTTP/HTTPS

April 12, 2023

Automatic Baselining for VDI

Dynamic thresholds mean fewer missed or false alerts

Automatic time-varying baselines – make configuration simple, and monitoring PROACTIVE

Slide 23 © 2007 eG Innovations Inc All Rights Reserved April 12, 2023

Monitoring & Reporting on Users (not just VMs)

Automatic Root-Cause Diagnosis Technology

End-to-end correlation

Automatic Root-Cause Diagnosis Technology

Top

-to-b

otto

m co

rrela

tion

Slide 26 © 2007 eG Innovations Inc All Rights Reserved April 12, 2023

The Value Proposition of the eG VDI Monitor

Proactively detect and correct problems before users notice

Increase revenues by reducing mean time to repair

Efficient use of operations staff

Wit

h e

G

Problem

Resolved

Problem O

ccurs

Problem

Isolated

Large amount of time saved

Problem

Resolved

Pro

blem Occurs

User Notic

es

Slowdown

80% of time spent in isolating the problem

TO

DA

Y

Problem

Isolated

Mean time to Repair (MTTR)is very high

eG VDI Monitor

Deploy/Rollout

ManagePlan/Scale

• Is performance comparable to physical desktops?• Is usage pattern along expected lines?

•Proactively know about problems•Diagnose the root-cause – Net? Database? VM? Application?•Know where the hot-spots are

• Plan how load is being balanced• Know who the top users are• Determine the top resource intensive apps• Identify what/where resources need to be added to support additional users

The eG Monitor For VDI

April 12, 2023

Monitoring XenApp, XenServer, XenDesktop

Component Type Components Monitored by the eG Suite

Web Servers Apache, iPlanet/SunONE, Microsoft IIS, IBM HTTP Server , Oracle Http

Web Application Servers WebLogic, ColdFusion, ATG, iPlanet, SunONE, Microsoft transaction server, WebSphere, SilverStream, JRun, Orion, Tomcat, Oracle 9i OC4J, Borland Enterprise

Enterprise Applications SAP R/3, SAP ITS, Corillian Voyager, Micros Opera, Oracle Forms, SiteMinder

Database Servers Oracle, Microsoft SQL server, DB2 UDB, Sybase, MySQL, Informix

Terminal Servers Microsoft Terminal Server, Citrix XenApp

Network Devices Cisco routers, Cisco Catalyst switches, Baystack hub, Network nodes, Local Director, Cisco VPN Concentrator

Microsoft Applications Active Directory, BizTalk server, Windows Internet Name Service (WINS), DHCP server, MS Print server , MS Proxy server, MS File server, ISA Proxy server

Firewalls Check Point Firewall –1, Cisco PIX, Juniper Netscreen

Email Servers Microsoft Exchange, Sun ONE messaging, Lotus Domino, Qmail, Sendmail

Messaging Servers MSMQ, IBM MQ, FioranoMQ server

Others FTP, MTS, Event Logs, Tuxedo domain servers, Printers, NetApp Filers and NetCache, SiteMinder Policy server, Radius server, COM+ server, ASP .NET server,

Operating Systems Windows NT, 2000, 2003, XP, Solaris, Linux, AIX, HPUX, Netware, OS400

Virtualization Platforms VMware vSphere, Citrix Xen Server , Solaris Zones/LDOMs , Microsoft Virtual Server

VDI Connection Brokers Citrix XenDesktop, VMware View, Leostream CB

85+ Applications, 10+ Operating systems, 5+ Virtualization platforms

Sign Up For A Free Performance Assessment

Free 14-day assessment of your Citrix infrastructure:• Citrix XenApp, XenServer, or XenDesktop• Up to 10 servers• Hassle free: 30 min install, 1 hour to fine tune, few hours to generate a report• Get a free performance assessment report and recommendations about your

Citrix infrastructure.

Recent Awards and Mention

Customer Successes

April 12, 2023

Certification

eG Monitors for XenApp, XenServer, XenDesktop

are certified

VDI Implementations

Client Segment Details Infrastructure

Healthcare (primarily)

OEM as part of CSC’s Dynamic Desktop Initiative

XenDesktop, NetApp storage, vSphere platform and vCenter, SQL, Active Directory, Citrix web interface, Citrix license server, Citrix access gateway

Finance 10000 VD deployment just started

XenDesktop, vSphere, vCenter, Wyse terminals

Telecom 3000+ Virtual Desktops

VMware View, vSphere, SAN, Active Directory, SQL, Profile servers

Finance 1000 Virtual Desktops XenServer, XenDesktop, Citrix license server, Active Directory, Exchange

Education 1000 Virtual Desktops VMware View, vSphere, EMC, Cisco