eG Reporter

Horizon Connection Brokering - User Connection Failures Failures when connecting to virtual desktops have a very adverse effect on user experience. Administrators should promptly identify such failures and rectify them at the earliest so that the user experience does not suffer. By knowing why a failure happened, administrators can determine quickly how to rectify the failure. The User Connection Failures report helps administrators in this regard. Using this report, administrators can historically analyze the user connection failures by event type or by desktop pool. They can see the failure count for each event type, and also determine the details of when exactly the desktop failed, the event message, node name, desktop ID, etc. for each failure. For instance, if a large number of bad password related failures have happened, this could indicate that some form of attack has been attempted. On the other hand, failures because of pool overload may indicate that the desktop pool is being heavily used and additional desktops may be needed in the pool to handle the workload it is receiving. To generate the User Connection Failures report for the above-mentioned scenario, do the following: Login to eG Reporter. Follow the menu sequence: REPORTS BY FUNCTION -> Domain Specific Reports ->Virtual Applications / Desktops (Citrix XenApp / XenDesktop) -> Horizon Connection Brokering -> User Connection Failures. Using this report, you can analyze the user connection failures noticed on one/more managed components, or those that are part of a zone, service or segment. The options provided by the Analyze By list box are discussed hereunder: Component: Select this option to choose the component (s) from across all the managed components in the environment. Zone: To generate a report for one/more components that are included in a zone, pick the Zone option. A Zone drop-down list will then appear, from which you would have to select the zone to which the components of interest to you belong to. A Sub zone flag also appears. Indicate whether the components present within the sub-zones of the chosen zone are also to be considered for report generation, by setting the Sub zone flag to Yes. Segment: If you want to generate a report for one/more chosen components that belong to a segment, select the Segment option from Analyze By list box, and then pick the Segment from the drop-down list that appears. Service: If you want to generate a report for one/more components involved in the delivery of a service, select the Service option from Analyze By, and then pick the required Service from the drop-down list that appears. Choose a Component Type for which the report is to be generated. The Components list will now be populated with all the components that are managed in your environment for the chosen component type. If the Components list consists of too many components, then viewing all the components and selecting the ones you need for report generation could require endless scrolling. To avoid this, you can click the button next to the Components list. A Components pop up window will then appear using which you can view almost all the components in a single interface and Select the ones to be included in this report. Once the Component Type is chosen, the Desktop Pools list will now be populated with all the desktop pools that were created on the chosen server (component). By default, this report will be generated for all desktop pools. To this effect, AIl Desktop Pools option will be chosen from this list. If you wish to choose individual desktop pools, then you can do so. If the Desktop Pools list consists of too many desktop pools, then viewing all the pools and selecting the ones you need for report generation could require endless scrolling. To avoid this, you can click the button next to the Desktop Pools list. A Desktop Pools pop up window will then appear using which you can view almost all the desktop pools in a single interface and Select the ones to be included in this report. Then, specify a report Timeline. You can either select a fixed timeline such as 1 hour, 2 days, etc., or choose the Any option from the Timeline list, and then provide a From and To date/time for report generation. Note For every user registered with the eG Enterprise system, the administrator can indicate the maximum timeline for which that user can generate a report. Once the maximum timeline is set for a user, then, whenever that user logs into eG Reporter and attempts to generate a report, the Timeline list box in the report page will display options according to the maximum timeline setting of that user. For instance, if a user can generate a report for a maximum period of 3 days only, then 3 days will be the highest option displayed in the Timeline list - i.e., 3 days will be the last option in the fixed Timeline list. Similarly, if the user chooses the Any option from the Timeline list and proceeds to provide a start date and end date for report generation using the From and To specifications, eG Enterprise will first check if the user's Timeline specification conforms to his/her maximum timeline setting. If not, report generation will fail. For instance, for a user who is allowed to generate reports spanning over a maximum period of 3 days only, the difference between the From and To dates should never be over 3 days. If it is, then, upon clicking the Run Report button a message box will appear, prompting the user to change the From and To specification. In addition to the settings discussed above, this report comes with a set of default specifications. These settings are hidden by default. If you do not want to disturb these default settings, then you can proceed to generate the report by clicking the Run Report button soon after you pick a Measure. However, if you want to view and then alter these settings (if required ), click on the icon. The default settings will then appear in the More Options drop down window. The steps below discuss each of these settings and how they can be customized. If the timeline specified for the report needs to exclude the data collected during the Weekends, then set Exclude weekends to Yes. If not, select No. Note By default, the weekend constitutes Saturday and Sunday. To override this default setting, do the following: Edit the eg_report.ini file in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory. In the [EXCLUDE_WEEKEND] section of the file, the Days parameter is set to Saturday,Sunday by default. You can modify this by setting the Days parameter to a comma-separated list of other days of the week - say Friday,Saturday. Save the file after making the required changes. Next, specify the start time and end time for report generation against the Time period field. Note By default, the Time period is set to 24 hours. Accordingly, the From and To parameters in the [timeframe] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory) are set to 00:00 and 24:00 respectively. If need be, you can override this default setting by configuring a different timeframe against the From and/or To parameters. In large environments, reports generated using months of data can take a long time to complete. Administrators now have the option of generating reports on-line or in the background. When a report is scheduled for background generation, administrators can proceed with their other monitoring, diagnosis, and reporting tasks, while the eG manager is processing the report. This saves the administrator valuable time. To schedule background processing of a report, select the Background Save - PDF option from the Report Generation list. In this case, a Report Name text box will appear, where you would have to provide the name with which the report is to be saved in the background. To process reports in the foreground, select the Foreground Generation - HTML option from this list. Note The Report Generation list will appear only if the EnableBackgroundReport flag in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the {EG_INSTALL_DIR}\manager\config directory) is set to Yes. The default selection in the Report Generation list will change according to the Timeline specified for the report. If the Timeline set is greater than or equal to the number of days specified against the MinDurationForReport parameter in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Background. On the other hand, if the Timeline set for the report is lesser than the value of the MinDurationForReport parameter, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Foreground. This is because, the MinDurationForReport setting governs when reports are to be processed in the background. By default, this parameter is set to 2 weeks - this indicates that by default, reports with a timeline of 2 weeks and above will be processed in the background. Click the Done button if any changes were made to the More Options drop down window. Finally, click the Run Report button to generate the report. If the Report type is Foreground Generation - HTML, then the report will appear as soon as you click the Run Report button. The generated report contains the following sections: The Overview section provides an at-a-glance view of the total count of connection failures noticed in the target environment during the chosen time period. The BY EVENT TYPE table lists the events that triggered connection failures and the number of times failures were noticed for each event. The BY DESKTOP POOLS table lists the desktop pools on which the connection failures were noticed and the number of times failure events were captured per on each desktop pool. The Connection Failures By Start Time section reveals a bar graph that reports the exact date/time at which the failure events were recorded. This graph helps administrators identify the date/time at which maximum number of failures were recorded. This would help them initiate troubleshooting at a faster pace. The Connection Failure Details section reveals a table which offers elaborate details on the connection failures noticed over the chosen time period. This includes the exact time of the occurrence of connection failure, the event that triggered the failure, the user who triggered the connection failure and the desktop pool in which the machine was assigned to the user. Using these details, administrators can perform quick and accurate diagnosis of the root-cause of connection failures, identify the desktop pools and users impacted by the same, and thus offer an effective and appropriate resolution.