Performance Metrics of a VMware Horizon Monitor
Stay on top of your VMware Horizon's performance by monitoring various resources associated with your virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)—all from a single console. Simply install Site24x7 On-Premise Poller on a Windows machine, add a VMware Horizon for monitoring, and get started.
By monitoring a VMware Horizon, you can:
- Analyze performance using different metrics.
- Add a threshold and availability profile to declare a specific resource as critical or down.
- Analyze critical performance issues using reports.
- View a dashboard of key metrics.
Interpret VMware Horizon performance
Analyze the performance of a VMware Horizon by viewing the connections in sessions, machines, desktop pools, View Connection servers, vCenter servers, security servers, View Composer servers, RDS servers, Unified Access Gateways, and Events Database.
In this doc, we'll cover the metrics that are monitored under each of the tabs mentioned below. You can access all these from VMware > Virtual Desktop Infrastructure > VMware Horizon tab, by clicking on the desired monitor name.
- Summary: A glimpse of the number of associated resources and sessions.
- Automated Desktop Pools: A list of all Automated Desktop Pools along with key metrics on machines and sessions.
- Manual Desktop Pools: A list of all Manual Desktop Pools along with key metrics on machines and sessions.
- RDS Desktop Pools: A list of all Remote Desktop Session (RDS) Desktop Pools along with key metrics on RDS Servers and sessions.
- Machines: Shows the number of machines connected.
- Sessions: Obtain details on sessions based on different protocols.
- Universal Access Gateway: Obtain basic details on Unified Access Gateways along with key performance metrics.
- Servers: Shows the View Connection servers, vCenter servers, security servers, View Composer servers, and RDS server details.
- Events Database: The details of the configured events database and its connection state.
- Settings: Lists the global settings and license details.
Summary
View details like Availability, Total Sessions, Total Machines, Problematic Machines, and Downtimes in one glance. Also, obtain the number of View Connection Servers, Total Desktop Pools, Automated Desktop Pools, Manual Desktop Pools, and RDS Desktop Pools associated with the VMware Horizon monitored.
The other metrics that are displayed in the Summary tab include:
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Total of Desktop Pools | A virtual desktop pool is a group of virtual desktops that are hosted on identically configured virtual machines (VMs). This graph shows the number of such virtual desktop pools associated. |
| Number of Desktop Pools in Enabled State | Displays the number of desktop pools that are enabled. |
| Number of Desktop Pools in Disabled State | Displays the number of desktop pools that are disabled. |
| Total Machines | The total number of machines associated with the VMware Horizon. |
| Problematic Machines | The total number of associated machines that are problematic. |
| Total Sessions | The total number of sessions initiated using the VMware Horizon. |
| Number of Desktop Sessions | The total number of sessions that are desktop sessions. |
| Number of Application Sessions | The total number of sessions that are application sessions. |
| Number of View Connections Servers | The number of View Connections Servers connected to this VMware Horizon. |
Automated Desktop Pools
A Desktop Pool is a desktop collection that users can select when logging in using VMware Horizon. Automated Desktop Pools is one of its types wherein vCenter VM Templates or snapshots are used to create a new desktop pool. The machines can be created when the pool is created.
This tab displays a list of different Automated Desktop Pools associated with the VMware Horizon along with details like State, Maximum Number of Machines, Total Machines, Total Sessions, and the Number of Automated Desktop Pools that are Available, Connected, and Disconnected; the number of Problematic Machines; and those with states Agent Unreachable, Customizing, and Error.
You can also view the Number of Automated Desktop Pools, Number of Automated Desktop Pools in Enabled State, Number of Automated Desktop Pools in Disabled State, Total Sessions, Maximum Number of Machines in a pool, Total Machines, Number of Machines in Available State, Number of Problematic Machines, Number of Machines in Connected State, Number of Machines in Disconnected State, Number of Machines in Agent Unreachable State, Number of Machines in Customizing State, and Number of Machines in Error State corresponding to all Automated Desktop Pools in the VMware Horizon.
The Session Split-up includes the number of Sessions in Connected State, Sessions in Disconnected State, and Sessions in Pending State.
Manual Desktop Pools
Manual desktop pools are a collection of existing vCenter VMs, physical computers, or third-party VMs.
This tab displays a list of different Manual Desktop Pools associated with the VMware Horizon along with details like State, Total Machines, Total Sessions, and the Number of Manual Desktop Pools that are Available, Connected, and Disconnected; the number of Problematic Machines; and those with states Agent Unreachable, Customizing, and Error.
You can also view the Number of Manual Desktop Pools, Number of Manual Desktop Pools in Enabled State, Number of Manual Desktop Pools in Disabled State, Total Sessions, Total Machines, Number of Machines in Available State, Number of Problematic Machines, Number of Machines in Connected State, Number of Machines in Disconnected State, Number of Machines in Agent Unreachable State, Number of Machines in Customizing State, and Number of Machines in Error State corresponding to all Manual Desktop Pools in the VMware Horizon.
The Session Split-up includes the number of Sessions in Connected State, Sessions in Disconnected State, and Sessions in Pending State.
RDS Desktop Pools
An RDS desktop pool is one of three types of desktop pools that you can create. An RDS desktop pool is associated with a farm, which is a group of RDS hosts. Each RDS host is a Windows server that can host multiple RDS desktops.
You can view a list of RDS desktop pools associated with the VMware Horizon along with Farm Name, State, Farm Health, Total RDS Servers, Total Sessions, and the Number of RDS Desktop Pools that are Available, in Agent Unreachable and Agent Configuration Error states.
You can also view the Number of RDS Desktop Pools, Number of RDS Desktop Pools in Enabled State, Number of RDS Desktop Pools in Disabled State, Total Sessions, Total RDS Servers, Number of RDS Servers in Available State, Number of RDS Servers in Agent Unreachable State, Number of RDS Servers in Agent Configuration Error State, and Number of RDS Servers in Unknown State corresponding to all RDS Desktop Pools in the VMware Horizon.
The Session Split-up includes the number of Sessions in Connected State, Sessions in Disconnected State, and Sessions in Pending State.
Machines
The Machines tab provides insights on top machines based on different categories as charts and tables. The categories include:
Top 10 Machines by Host CPU, Host Memory, Disk Latency, Disk Read IOPS, and Disk Write IOPS.
Also, you can obtain the Current Machine State Summary and the Current Problematic Machine State Summary.
The other metrics that you can view in this tab include:
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Total Machines | The total number of machines connected to the VMware Horizon. |
| Problematic Machines | The total number of machines that have some issues or throw an error. |
| Problematic Machines Split-up | A split-up of the problematic machines based on the error. |
| Number of Machines in Provisioning Error State | The total number of machines that encounter provisioning errors in the View Composer server. |
| Number of Machines in Error State | The total number of machines that are in the unknown error state. |
| Number of Machines in Agent Unreachable State | The Agent Unreachable status occurs when the View Connection Server is unable to establish communication with the View Agent on a VMware View virtual machine. This metric denotes the number of machines that are in the Agent Unreachable state. |
| Number of Machines in Startup Error State | The total number of machines that have encountered start up errors and are in the start up error state. |
| Number of Machines in Agent Disabled State | If a desktop that is set to refresh or delete after log off is reset, the desktop goes into the Already Used state, or possibly the Agent Disabled state. This metrics displays the number of machines in Agent Disabled State. |
| Number of Machines in Invalid IP State | If the subnet mask registry setting is configured on the VM, and no active network adapters have an IP address within the configured range, then machines throw an Invalid IP State error. This metrics displays the number of machines in Invalid IP State. |
| Number of Machines in Agent Needs Reboot State | When a Horizon 7 component is upgraded, the VM must be restarted to allow View Agent or Horizon Agent to operate with the upgraded component. If not, it will throw an Agent Needs Reboot State. This metrics displays the number of machines in the Agent Needs Reboot State. |
| Number of Machines in Protocol Failure State | A Protocol Failure error in Horizon occurs if the View Blast agent is installed on the View desktop, but the Windows Firewall service is disabled. This metrics displays the number of machines in the Protocol Failure State. |
| Number of Machines in Domain Failure State | A Domain Failure State means that a VM encountered a problem reaching the domain. The domain server was not accessible, or the domain authentication failed. This metrics displays the number of machines that have encountered this error. |
| Number of Machines in Configuration Error State | Configuration Error, also known as Protocol Error occurs when any of the display protocols are not enabled. This metrics displays the number of machines that are in the Configuration Error State. |
| Number of Machines in Maintenance Mode State | Maintenance mode prevents users from accessing their desktops. This metric displays the number of machines that are in the Maintenance Mode State. |
| Number of Machines in Unknown State | At times, VDI machines are shown missing or unknown which could be due to missing VcCache updates. The total number of machines with this issue is shown under the Number of Machines in Unknown State metric. |
Sessions
In this tab, you can view the Sessions data with insights powered by Site24x7 AppLogs.
You can choose the desired views from the drop-down menu.
- Sessions Default View: Shows a graph of overall sessions along with details like Session Type, Session State, Session Start Time, Session Duration, Idle Duration, Desktop Name, Desktop Type, User Name, Session CPU, and Session Memory.
- Blast Display Protocol Sessions: The Blast is a Secure Gateway and it includes Blast Extreme Adaptive Transport (BEAT) networking, which dynamically adjusts to network conditions such as varying speeds and packet loss. This chart displays the stats of the sessions that happen over the BLAST protocol along with Session State, Session Start Time, Blast Session Bandwidth Uplink, Blast Session Bytes Transmitted, Blast Session Packet Loss Uplink, and Blast Session Round Trip Time.
- PCoIP Display Protocol Sessions: PC over IP (PCoIP) is a remote display protocol used for delivering remote desktops and applications to endpoints. This chart displays the sessions that occur over the PCoIP protocol along with details like Session State, Session Start Time, Bytes Received, Bytes Sent, Duration in seconds, Packets Received, Packets Sent, Received Packets Lost, and Transmitted Packets Lost.
- Console Display Protocol Sessions: Denotes the sessions that happen over the Console Display Protocol along with details like Session State, Session Start Time, Session Duration, Session CPU, and Session Memory.
You can also view the top 10 sessions by Session CPU and Session Memory along with the minimum, maximum, and average values.
Current Session State Summary
Obtain stats along with intuitive graphs on Total Sessions and the Session Split Up with the Number of Sessions in Connected State, Number of Sessions in Disconnected State, and Number of Sessions in Pending State.
Locally vs Globally Entitled Users Sessions: The total local user sessions that happen connected to this VMware Horizon versus the sessions that take place in a non-cloud pod architecture (CPA) environment, but configured with a set of rules.
Current Desktop Type Session State Summary
Obtain stats along with intuitive graphs on Total Desktop Sessions and the Desktop type Session Split Up with the Number of Desktop Sessions in Connected State, Number of Desktop Sessions in Disconnected State, and Number of Desktop Sessions in Pending State.
Locally vs Globally Entitled Users Sessions: The total local desktop sessions that happen connected to this VMware Horizon versus the sessions that take place with proper entitlement by entitled users.
Current Application Type Session State Summary
Obtain stats along with intuitive graphs on Total Application Sessions and the Session Split Up with the Number of Application Sessions in Connected State, Number of Application Sessions in Disconnected State, and Number of Application Sessions in Pending State.
Locally vs Globally Entitled Users Application Sessions: The total local application sessions that happen connected to this VMware Horizon versus the sessions that take place with proper entitlement by entitled users.
Universal Access Gateway
Unified Access Gateway directs authentication requests to the appropriate server and discards any unauthenticated request. Users can access only the resources that they are authorized to access.
You can view the basic details of every Universal Access Gateway associated with your VMware Horizon. These details include the Name, Address, Version, and also shows if the Universal Access Gateway is Active, Staled, or Connected. Other metrics include:
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Unified Access Gateway Active Connections | The total number of active Unified Access Gateway connections associated with the VMware Horizon. |
| Unified Access Gateway PCoIP Connections | Denotes the Unified Access Gateway connections that happen using the PCoIP protocol. |
| Unified Access Gateway Blast Connections | Displays the connections that happen over the BLAST gateway through the prescribed ports. |
Servers
Obtain the details of the associated View Connection servers, vCenter servers, security servers, View Composer servers, and RDS servers.
View Connection Server details: Number of Connections by View Connection Server and Connections High-water Mark by View Connection Server.
vCenter Server details: Obtain vCenter server details like Server Name, Port, Adapter Type, Maximum Provisioning Operations, Maximum Power Operations, View Connection Servers, ESX/ESXi Hosts, and Datastores.
Security Server Details: Obtain the status of the security server along with details like the Number of Connections Tunneled by Security Server and Number of PCoIP Secure Gateway Sessions by Security Server.
View Composer Server Details: View the Server Name, Port, Version, and the Number of Connections with the Status as Error.
RDS Server Details: View the Server Name, DNS Name, Agent Version, Status, and Session Count by RDS Server.
Events Database
Obtain events database details like Database Name, Database Type, Server Name, Server Port, User Name Used for Connection, Database Connection State, Prefix of Tables within the Database, Error with Database Connection, and configuration details.
Settings
View your VMware Horizon License Details and Global Settings.