During last Polish Citrix User Group (PLCUG) meeting I was asked what is the best way, to measure user ICA Session latency. We have several methods to do this:
- HDX Monitor – we can use it for XenApp 6.5 – XenDesktop 7.6
- EdgeSight – only for XenApp 6.5 (for EUEM counters we will need Platinum licenses)
- Citrix Director (part of XenDesktop 7.x) – it shows latency in the same way
Unfortunately this methods allow us only to verify few counters, and only in limited way (latency is shown in Real Time without history data). We can’t use it for deep analytics and troubleshooting. That’s we Citrix implemeneted performance counters. The most important thing is, that we can set collecting all data when users are working and can analyze it lately.
References: XenApp 6.5 Performance Counters Reference.
I won’t write here, how to use performance monitor (you can find many posts, how to use it).
Here are some screenshots from performance monitor.
Below we can see “\ICA Session(*)\Latency – Last Recorded” counters. I marked (black line) one – average value was 18ms (it’s very nice) and maximum recorded value was 312ms.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
If we want to verify, what is the network bandwidth we can use “\ICA Session(*)\Output Session Bandwidth” counters. Below one user session – average 242 kbps with maximum value at 1,5 Mbps.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
And the last one – server load. Using this “\Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server\Cumulative Server Load” counter we can verify Server Load – the same value show command “QFARM /LOAD“.
Counters:
- Red – Server Load
- Black – % Commited Bytes In Use
- Green – % Processor Time
- Purple dashed – Active user sessions
- Blue – Context switches/s
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
I guess that’s all right now. If you are interested more about those counters or performance monitoring of XenApp servers please let me now (using comments below).
