Default Parameters for CtxXcXAAppTest

This test reports statistics pertaining to the different applications executing on a Citrix Virtual Appsserver and their usage by Citrix clients.

Note:

This test will report metrics only if the Virtual Appsserver being monitored uses the .Net framework v3.0 (or above).

This page depicts the default parameters that need to be configured for the CtxXcXAAppTest.

• The TEST PERIOD list box helps the user to decide how often this test needs to be executed. By default, this is set to 5 minutes.

• Using the SHOW PUBLISHED APPS flag, you can indicate whether the test should monitor published applications alone or all applications running on the server. By default, this flag is set to No, indicating that all applications will be monitored by default. To monitor only published applications, you need to set this flag to Yes. However, prior to changing the flag status to ‘Yes’, you need to make sure that a ‘Citrix XenDesktop Broker’ component is also managed by the eG Enterprise system and is reporting metrics.

• By default, the SHOW PUBLISHED DESKTOPS is set to flag No. If this flag is set to Yes, then the detailed diagnosis of this test will list the resource-intensive processes/applications accessed by a user along with the exact published desktop that has been used by the user to access the application. Note that, in the detailed diagnosis, the ‘host name’ of the monitored server will be displayed as the ‘published desktop name’.

• The COMBINED IE REPORT flag is applicable only if the SHOW PUBLISHED APPS flag is set to Yes.

  Typically, the detailed diagnosis of this test lists the applications that a user accessed on the Virtual Appsserver and the resource usage of each application. To fetch these details, the eG agent takes the published name (eg., Word) of each application that is open on the Virtual Appsserver, determines the underlying process and process arguments that drive the application (eg., winword.exe is the process that drives Word), and tries to find an exact match for this process name and arguments in the task manager. If an exact match is found, then, by default, the underlying process name of the application is displayed in the detailed diagnosis. The resource usage metrics that correspond to that process name in the task manager are also displayed as part of detailed diagnosis.

  For published applications that open in the Internet Explorer (IE) browser on XenApp, this process name matching algorithm may not work. This is because, if multiple applications on Virtual Appsare opened using IE, each such application will open only in a different tab page of the IE browser. As a result, though the underlying process names will be different for each of these applications, in the task manager, the process names for all these applications will only be ‘iexplore.exe’. Because of the name mismatch (between Virtual Appsand the task manager), the eG agent will wrongly determine that no instance of an application is running, and will exclude that application name from the detailed diagnostics. To avoid this, with the SHOW PUBLISHED APPS flag set to Yes, set this flag to Yes.

  If this is done, then, the eG agent will be able to capture every application or application instance that is opened in a different tab page of an IE browser, despite the process name mismatch. Also, the eG agent will be able to collect detailed metrics of such applications and display them in the Detailed Diagnosis page against the process name ‘Internet Explorer’.

• By default, the ENABLE BROWSER MONITORING flag is set to No, indicating that the eG agent does not monitor browser activity on the Virtual Appsserver. If this flag is set to Yes, then, whenever one/more IE (Internet Explorer) browser instances on the Virtual Appsserver are accessed, the detailed diagnosis of the Instances currently running measure will additionally reveal the URL being accessed via each IE instance and the resources consumed by every URL. Armed with this information, administrators can identify the web sites that are responsible for excessive resource usage by an IE instance.

• By default, the REPORT BY DOMAIN NAME flag is set to Yes. This implies that by default, the detailed diagnosis of this test will display the domainname\username of each user who accessed an application on the server. This way, administrators will be able to quickly determine which user logged into the server from which domain. If you want the detailed diagnosis to display only the username of these users, set this flag to No.

• By default, the EXCLUDE parameter is set to none. This means that the test will monitor all the applications that are launched on the Virtual Appsserver, by default. If you want the test to disregard certain applications when monitoring, then provide a comma-separated list of process names that correspond to the applications you want to ignore, in the EXCLUDE text box. For instance, your specification can be: winword.exe,js.exe,taskmgr.exe. Your specification can include wild card patterns as well. For example: *win*,js*,*task

• Using the SHOW ALL DESKTOP PROCESSES flag, you can indicate whether the test should report top resource-intensive processes alone or all processes running in the background when the user accesses an application. By default, this flag is set to No, indicating that this test will report only top three resource-intensive processes e.g. CPU, Memory and IO Reads processes from the desktop OS processes. This helps the administrator optimize the database. To report all the processes, you need to set this flag to Yes.

• Using the SHOW ONLY ACTIVE APPS flag, you can indicate whether the test should monitor all applications or applications that are currently active on the server. By default, this flag is set to Yes, indicating that only the currently active applications will be monitored by the eG agent. To monitor all applications, you need to set this flag to No.

• In some highly secured virtual environments, administrators whitelist an index of business-critical and most commonly used applications that are permitted to be present and active on the target Virtual Apps server. The goal of whitelisting is to protect the target server from potentially harmful applications and prevent any unauthorized files from executing. Application whitelisting places control over which applications are permitted to run on the target server and is controlled by the administrators, rather than the end-user. In such environments, administrators may wish to monitor only the applications that are whitelisted on the target server. To achieve this, administrators can set the Show Only Whitelist Apps flag to Yes.

  By default, SHOW ONLY WHITELIST APPS flag is set to No indicating that this test monitors all applications executing on the target server. By default, eG Enterprise offers a comma separated list of pre-defined applications specified against the WhiteListProcesses option in the [EXCLUDE_APPLICATIONS] section of the eg_tests.ini file available in the <eG_INSTALL_DIR>./manager/config folder. Setting the Show Only Whitelist Apps flag to Yes will enable this test to monitor only the applications that are listed against the WhiteListProcesses option. If administrators wish to add or remove one or more applications to/from this pre-defined list, then, they can do so by specifying the applications against the WhiteListProcesses option.

• The DD FREQUENCY refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against DD FREQUENCY.

• Once the above values are provided, click on the UPDATE button to register the changes made.

When changing default configurations of tests, the values with “$” indicate variables that will be replaced by the eG system according to the specific server being managed - for instance, $hostName is the host/nickname of the target host, $port is the port number of the server being monitored. E.g., for a server xyz:80, $hostName will be changed automatically by the eG manager to “xyz*” and $port will be changed to “80” when configuring a test.