Getting started with Desktop Virtualization

Virtual desktop infrastructures have many layers that can affect user experience. The source of poor performance can be, for example, the endpoint device, its network connection, the data center host, the VM, or the application connectivity. Desktop Virtualization allows you to quickly and accurately identify the origin of performance degradation by showing issues as patterns in the connection, allowing you to drill down to the root cause.

Collector agents installed on client devices communicate with Collector agents installed in VM environments. Allow virtual channels to enable client device metrics.

Refer to your vendor's documentation to learn how to enable virtual channels.

Accessing Desktop Virtualization

Navigate to the main menu and select Desktop Virtualization > Sessions:

Citrix VM status monitoring

The Citrix VM monitoring dashboards provide a centralized view of your Citrix environment.

Access the dashboards by selecting Desktop Virtualization > Virtual machines under Citrix CVAD or Citrix DaaS in the main menu.

See the Citrix library packs documentation to learn about the Citrix monitoring essentials.

Granting permissions for Desktop Virtualization

Refer to the Roles documentation for a detailed description of Permissions, View domain options and Data privacy granularity settings.

To enable proper permissions for Desktop Virtualization as an administrator:

1. Select Administration > Roles from the main navigation panel.

2. Create a New Role or edit an existing role by hovering over it.

3. In the Permissions section, scroll down to the VDI section to enable the appropriate permissions for the role.

Installing connectors and endpoint agent for Desktop Virtualization

VDI Experience relies on specific configurations for VMs and the physical devices connecting to the virtual infrastructure.

Virtual infrastructure

1. Install the applicable connector for your VDI environment:

   • CVAD: Connector for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

   • Citrix DaaS: Connector for Citrix DaaS

   • Microsoft AVD: Connector for Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop

2. Install Collector on VMs; see the Installing Collector on Windows documentation to learn how to perform the installation.

Physical devices connecting to the virtual infrastructure

Collector

Install Collector on endpoint devices connecting to a VDI session with the VDI-specific parameter setting; see the Installing Collector on Windows documentation to learn how to perform the installation.

VDI Client Extension

The VDI Client Extension is a lightweight agent for personal employee devices and self-managed devices, on which Nexthink Collector cannot be installed.

See the Installing the Nexthink VDI Client Extension documentation for details about the extension and installation instructions.

Testing VDI Experience components

The following sections help you check the different components you need to configure before using VDI Experience. Use the suggested NQL queries in Investigations module.

Testing connectors

Check if the following NQL data model fields are correctly populated:

• desktop_broker

• desktop_pool

• disk_image

Do this by running the following query:

devices
| list virtualization.desktop_broker, virtualization.desktop_pool, virtualization.disk_image

If the query returns valid data, it means your connector configuration is correct.

However, if there is a problem with the connector, run the following query to see when your device was last updated by the connector:

devices
| list virtualization.last_update
| sort virtualization.last_update desc

If the last update happened unreasonably long ago, such as three days ago, it means there is a problem with the connector configuration and you need to check it.

Testing the VM Collector

Run the following query to see the list of VMs with an unsupported desktop virtualization platform, such as one by an unsupported vendor or because of an Collector version that does not yet support VDI reporting:

devices
| where virtualization.vdi_reporting in [not_supported, null] and hardware.type == virtual
| list device.name, collector.version, virtualization.vdi_reporting

Execute the following query to see the list of VMs running a supported desktop virtualization agent where the data could be reported if the VDI Experience product was enabled:

devices
| where virtualization.vdi_reporting == inactive

Check the VMs returned by the previous queries for troubleshooting. To see a list of VMs with a supported desktop virtualization agent and the Collector already sending data to VDI Experience, run the following query:

devices
| where virtualization.vdi_reporting == active

You can also run the following query to see the network RTT values for active sessions:

session.vdi_events during past 48h 
| where state == active 
| list vdi_session.name, remote_protocol, device.name, user.name, network_rtt

Testing the endpoint device Collector and VDI Client Extension

Run the following query to see the list of endpoint devices that have Collector or the standalone VDI Client Extension running on them:

session.vdi_events
| summarize client_cpu_usage = client.cpu.normalized_usage.avg() by client.device.name
| where client_cpu_usage != null

After running the query, select the device in the list, and use Retrieve all > Devices to see the list of device names. If a device is not on the list, it means it does not have neither an appropriate version of the Collector nor the Standalone VDI Client Extension installed on it

Desktop Virtualization dashboards

Desktop Virtualization features the following dashboards:

• Sessions overview, which allows you to oversee all VDI sessions. Use this dashboard to identify which sessions need troubleshooting.

• Session view, which shows you the details of a selected session. Use this dashboard to focus on the metrics of a specific session.