Using Sessions overview

The Sessions overview dashboard allows you to gain insights into all Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) sessions in your organization. The top-to-bottom arrangement of widgets provides an intuitive solution to quickly identify problematic sessions in your entire virtual infrastructure, giving you the ability to gradually locate the root cause by identifying issue patterns that have developed over time. This progressive approach provides you with all the relevant data needed for effective troubleshooting without overwhelming you with irrelevant information.

Filters

Use filters at the top of the dashboard to analyze sessions based on the topology of your environment. Active filters affect all widgets on the dashboard, meaning that only sessions that fall within the scope of every active filter are visible in the widgets and the sessions list.

Timeframe picker

Use the timeframe picker in the top-right corner to select the time interval you want to investigate. The default timeframe is 4 hours.

Drag the cursor over an area on the timeline to zoom in on a specific period.

The dashboard automatically applies the timeframe selection to the #metrics graph.

Sessions overview tabs

The following tabs are available in the Sessions overview dashboard:

• Sessions displays metrics and per-session trends for all VDI sessions to identify issue patterns.

• Session map displays an overview of connections between the endpoint devices and VMs.

• Executions displays a list of all executions on the VMs in all active sessions.

• Connections displays an overview of connections between the VMs and backend systems in all sessions.

The following sections explain the components and functionalities of each tab.

Sessions

The Sessions overview tab allows you to investigate all active and inactive sessions in your environment.

Use the following filters at the top of the page to view relevant sessions:

• Username of the client to focus on a single user

• Virtual machine name to which the clients connect

• Desktop pool name to which the clients connect

• Environment name to which the desktop pools belong

Gauge chart

The single-metric gauge chart shows the total number of sessions that were live in the selected timeframe.

Example

The following chart shows a simplified timeframe divided into three buckets and five sessions:

In each bucket, a different combination of sessions is live. However, the total number of sessions in this timeframe is five. As a result, the gauge chart for this timeframe would show 5.

Bar chart

The bar chart shows activity across all sessions in the selected timeframe, broken down into time buckets. Each bucket displays only the sessions that were active in that time slice.

The vertical range of the chart correlates to the bucket with the highest number of live sessions. However, because the gauge chart shows all sessions that were live during the selected timeframe, the number in the gauge chart can be higher than the bar chart's maximum, as shown in the following figure:

See the example in Gauge chart for a simplified explanation.

Timeframe selection

You can select a timeframe of up to 30 days to display on the bar chart. Aside from the regular 5-minute data resolution, VDI Experience offers unique high-resolution data with 30-second time buckets for the last 2 days.

The resolution of the bar chart is also affected by the selected timeframe, which shown in the following table.

Example

The following figure shows a resolution of 5 minutes in a selected 6-hour interval anywhere in the past 30 days:

However, selecting a 1-hour interval in the past 2 days shows a fine-grain resolution of 30 seconds:

Gauge and bar chart color codes

Hover over the gauge or chart to see a breakdown of session health percentages as a tooltip. The colors on both the gauge and bar chart indicate the following statuses:

• Green indicates periods when the sessions had good health.

• Yellow indicates periods when the sessions had average health.

• Red indicates periods when the sessions had bad health.

The following sections explain how to use the widgets on this dashboard to narrow down troubleshooting to specific sessions.

Health groups

Health groups are VDI-specific metrics related to a specific issue type that help you identify which session properties need troubleshooting.

Each health group comprises one or more subgroups, which enable a finer organization of the related VDI metrics.

Select a health subgroup to see the list of connected VDI metrics.

The evolution of actively selected metrics is shown on the right side, where you can see the correlations between metrics using the timeline graph and breakdowns:

• Timeline graph - Use the timeline graph to analyze the metric evolution over time to identify any changes or spikes. The line represents the evolution of metric value for all sessions that fall within the scope of the selected filters and timeframe.

• Breakdown - Use the By drop-down list to break down the metrics by specific properties. Select a breakdown to apply it as a filter, which will also be visible in the filter menu at the top of the dashboard.

Filtering

Select the action menu on a health subgroup to enable filtering. The selected filter is visible in the filter menu at the top of the dashboard. The health subgroup filter also affects the sessions list, meaning only the sessions that fall within the filter's scope are visible in the list.

Health subgroups and VDI metrics

The following sections provide high-level details about each health subgroup and the connected metrics on a high level. For more details about each metric, hover over the metric name to see a tooltip or see the NQL data model.

Session health group

It indicates how interactions with the session evolved. It contains the following subgroups and metrics:

Client device health group

It shows the hardware load on physical client devices that access the sessions. It contains the following subgroup and metric:

Network health group

It shows the network connection strength between endpoint devices and VMs. A better connection means lower latency and higher bandwidth for a more seamless experience for clients. It contains the following subgroup and metrics:

Virtual machine health group

It shows the hardware load of VMs. A lower hardware load means more resources and fewer bottlenecks for clients. It contains the following subgroups and metrics:

Additional metrics

Add additional metrics from outside the selected health subgroup using the drop-down list. Some metrics are visible by default; toggle their visibility by selecting them.

Sessions list

The session list at the bottom of the page shows all active sessions that fall within the scope of the selected filters.

From the sessions list, select table items to open the action bar to:

• Filter on selected sessions—applicable to dashboard widgets.

• Execute action directly on the selected sessions, such as a remote action, campaign, or workflow—configured to target VDI sessions.

  • You may also execute actions on VDI sessions from the Investigations module.

The session list shows the following details about each virtual session:

• Session name to which the client is connected; select a session name to access Session view.

• Username of the client.

• Client device name used by the client.

• Device -> Name of the device that is hosting the session; select a device name to access Device view.

• Session state of the session, which is either active or disconnected.

• Last interaction time showing the time stamp when the last user interaction was made.

Active metrics in the Metrics section are also visible as columns on the right side of the list.

Accessing Session view and Device view

Select a session name to access the Session view dashboard. See the Using Session view section to learn how to examine details of a specific session to assist in troubleshooting.

Select Client device name or Device -> Name to access Device view for the endpoint device or the VM respectively.

Session map

The Session map tab gives you a visual representation of the connection between endpoint devices and VMs across all sessions.

Connection issues can occur across different devices, users and destinations. Session map accelerates troubleshooting and helps you identify the appropriate team to fix network-related issues by providing an interactive visualization of session.vdi_events data.

Using Session

Session map breaks down the selected metrics for session.vdi_events into multiple properties and uses connection paths to display the relationships between properties. Nodes and lines represent these relationships.

The Session map connection paths display four columns by default, allowing you to click on nodes or lines to drill down to lower levels of breakdowns.

To switch from the displayed metrics and begin troubleshooting issues:

1. Select the Display drop-down above the Session map visualization.

2. Select one of the available metrics for the particular connection data set.

Line thickness for visual comparison

The thickness of a line, which connects two nodes, is proportional to the metric value between those respective nodes when compared to the same metric values between different nodes in the same two columns.

Nodes

The system sorts nodes in descending order within each column. This makes it likely that thicker lines appear towards the top, but this is not always true.

Session map shows the top eight nodes in each column. If a column has more than eight nodes, the values are aggregated into the Others node at the bottom of the column:

• Click on More to open another eight nodes in a column.

• Click Less to hide additional nodes.

Hovering over a node or line

Hover over a node or a line to highlight the connection metric value that goes through that node or line.

Drilling down to specific fields

Session map displays four columns by default. Each column is associated with a hierarchy of fields to reduce the number of nodes shown on the screen.

The following table lists the hierarchy of fields for each column, which goes from general to specific:

To drill down on a Session map field, you have the following options:

• Click on a node in the Session map visualization.

• Click on a line between two nodes.

After clicking on a node or line, navigate back up the hierarchy using the expandable drop-downs in each column heading in Session map.

Selecting a node

Select a node to:

• Apply a filter for the selected node.

• Drill down one level in the column hierarchy.

Selecting a line

Select a line to:

• Apply a filter for the selected line, which is equivalent to selecting the two nodes it connects.

• Drill down one level in the hierarchy of the connected columns.

Navigating back up the hierarchy

To navigate back up the hierarchy of the Session map fields after selecting nodes or lines:

1. Select the drop-down in the Session map column heading.

2. Select any field name above the current level in the hierarchy.

Connections timeline

The Connections timeline displays the selected metric’s development over time. For example, if you select Network RTT, it shows the number of failed connections across the timeframe selected in the timeframe picker.

The timeline is synchronized with the connection paths. When you drill down or up on nodes, the timeline chart updates accordingly.

Zooming in on a time period using the timeline

The Connections timeline is interactive. To focus on a specific period of interest, click and drag your cursor over that timeframe in the timeline.

This action loads both the Session map chart and the timeline for that period, allowing you to analyze connections data during that time.

Executions

See a list of all binary executions on VMs in all active sessions.

Select a device name in the Device -> Name column to access Device view for the specific VM.

Action menu

Use the contextual action menu to refine your troubleshooting by allowing different data exploration paths.

In the Username, Device -> Name and Binary -> Name columns, select the action menu on the right side of the selected binary to open a new contextual investigation to Retrieve all connected devices, users, or events.

In the Device -> Name and Binary -> Name columns, Diagnose execution crashes or high CPU usage.

In the following columns, select Drill down to in the action menu to open a new contextual investigation to further diagnose issues and remediate them using remote actions:

• Username

• CPU time

• Memory used

• Page faults

• Incoming traffic

• Outgoing traffic

• Number of freezes

Connections

The Connections tab includes a visualization of connection.events data and metrics specific to connections between VMs and backend systems in the sessions.

See the Network view documentation to learn how to uncover network issues with this interactive map and timeline.