Quantifying Genuine User Experience in Virtual Desktop Ecosystems

© eG Innovations, Inc. | www.eginnovations.com
Quantifying User Experience
in
Virtual Ecosystems
Wendy Howard
Technical Consultant
eG Innovations

Agenda
• Today’s Dilemma
• Virtual Environment Challenges
• User Experience Defined
• Calculating User Experience
• Making Improvements
2

Today’s Dilemma
3
Server admins provide remote
access to apps and desktops using
a virtual environment
Users call and complain
about poor performance
Virtual environments are
complex and hard to monitor
Problems we have…

User Experience: The Measure of IT Success
• When users complain: “My application is slow!”
• Identifying the root cause is challenging:
– In the application code, the server, OS, database, network
connectivity, virtualization/cloud platform, storage array, etc.?

© eG Innovations, Inc. | www.eginnovations.com 5
Virtual Environment Challenges

What can impact the User Experience?
6
• Almost anything can impact a user’s
experience...
...performance Jokers are everywhere!!
Monitoring the performance of
the digital workspace ecosystem
has become mission-critical and
is a foundation for success

Popular Virtualization Architectures

Citrix
8

VMware Horizon
9
Source: Navico.com

Microsoft
10

What do they all have in common?
11

Wrong Ways to ‘Calculate’ your User’s Experience
Trouble Tickets
12
SupportCalls
Emotional data
Downtime %

Parts of the User Experience
13
Can I log into work
quickly today?
Why does my
computer keep
freezing?
My cursor seems
slow….
This application is
moving at the speed
of molasses…
Latency Logins
Response
Times
Bandwidth

Parts of the User Experience
14
Can I log into work
quickly today?
Why does my
computer keep
freezing?
My cursor seems
slow….
This application is
moving at the speed
of molasses…

Round Trip Time
16
Source: 2016 Citrix Performance Survey by eG Innovations and DABCC
Common reasons for Citrix Performance Issues

Network Latency= RTT
17
• Indicates the latency experienced by this user
when transmitting/receiving data over the
connection to the virtual environment
• Try to keep latency below 250ms
• For more aggressive SLA’s, keep it under 150ms
High Network Latency, AKA Round
Trip Time, can user can cause the
user loss of productivity

Logon KPIs
19
“The “logon time” KPI deals with the time it takes from
when a user sits down in front of a device and submits
their credentials for authentication, to when they can
effectively start to use the system. ” – www.james-
rankin.com
Each virtual environment has
their own steps during a logon,
but they usually come down to:
• Initialization
• Authentication
• Profile
• Policies
Citrix Virtual Desktop logon process

Measuring Logon times
• Consider measuring the logon time plus the breakdown
20
Initialization Authentication Profile Policies
User Initiates
Credential obtention
Enumeration
Group Policies
Scripts
Hive load
Folders
Printers

Simulating Logins
• Consider a simulator for measuring logons at regular intervals
21

Response Times
• In general, response time is the time between the user taking
an action, like using the mouse or keyboard, to the time it
appears on the virtual app/desktop.
23
“Response Times by-itself mean very little and do not provide anyone a good view of what the
system performance looks like. One has to look at Response Times in conjunction with other
Performance Quantities.”
– TangoWhiskey37.Github.io

Response Time = Latency
24
• RT = Wt + Qt [ Wt = Wait Time, Qt = Queuing
Time ]
• Try to keep Response time to less than 250ms
• Includes Latency of any protocol:
– ICA
– EDT
– PCoIP
– Blast
– TCP

Bandwidth Usage
26
• It’s important to track the bandwidth used on each interface.
If the bandwidth usage is close to the maximum speed of the network interface,
this can indicate a bottleneck that affects performance.
• Also important to track individual user bandwidth usage across the interface
Users

Bandwidth Usage
27
• There is no indicator of bad or good bandwidth usage.
• Some users take up more than others
• Important to measure usage across all users
• Usually measured at a percentage of usage:
• Bandwidth usage =
• % of Bandwidth of User/total Bandwidth available
• Generally, if the bandwidth usage is low, and latency is high, there’s a
problem with the end-user’s network, resulting in poor user experience.

User Experience and Connection Quality
Bandwidth + Response Time + Latency =
28
What is the Connection Quality of this user’s experience and why?
Weak Connection=
• Bandwidth is > 1Mbps
• Latency is <150ms
• Round Trip Time<180ms
Strong Connection=
• Bandwidth > 8Mbps
• Latency <=150ms
• Round Trip Time<=180ms
Connection Quality

User’s Connection Quality Indicator (contd.)
Connection
Quality Indicator
Alert in eG
Enterprise
Bandwidth (MBps) Latency (ms) RTT (ms)
None None <= 0 < 0 < 0
Strong Normal > 8 <= 60 <= 80
Weak Minor > 1 & <= 8 >60 & <= 150 >80 & <= 180
Poor Major Any condition
other than the
above
Any condition
other than the
above
Any condition
other than the
above
Citrix recommended computation of user’s connection
quality indicator
Strong: Network and servers are operating normally
Weak: Possible network congestion or servers might be busy
Poor: Network or servers may be experiencing problems

Do’s and Don’ts of Monitoring User Experience

Do’s of UX Performance Monitoring
• Monitor End-to-end
• Keep monitoring “TOMA”
• Get regular reports and review them
• Own up and speak up
• Consider latencies and bandwidth usage
31

Don’t’s of UX Performance Monitoring
• Ignore the data
• Blame other teams for poor performance
• Hide incriminating data
• Look at isolated metrics
32

Summary
• Users Experience is a sum of its individual parts
– Use Connection Quality equation and User Logon data
• Consider performance from all users
• Use a tool, like eG Innovations, for calculating Connection
Quality
• Keep logins under 30s
33

eG Innovations & VMware Horizon: The Perfect Marriage
eG Enterprise
Version 7
VMware Horizon
Version 7
• Monitors workspace user experience and
proactively alerts to problems
• Offers a single pane of glass for monitoring the
entire VMware Horizon workspace from end to
end
• Ensures that the performance of the VDI
infrastructure enabling digital transformation is
top notch
• Delivers a high-definition user experience on
any device
• Provides a centralized solution for accessing any
app, endpoint management and content
collaboration
• Ensures digital transformation success with
high ROI and operational efficiency
Monitoring solution purpose-built for

eG Innovations and Citrix: The Perfect Marriage
eG Enterprise
Version 7
Virtual Apps and Desktops
Version 7
• Monitors workspace user experience and
proactively alerts to problems
• Offers a single pane of glass for monitoring the
entire Citrix workspace (on-prem, cloud, hybrid)
from end to end
• Ensures that the performance of the Citrix
infrastructure enabling digital transformation is
top notch
• Delivers a high-definition user experience on
any device
• Provides a centralized solution for accessing any
app delivery, endpoint management and content
collaboration
• Ensures digital transformation success with
high ROI and operational efficiency
Monitoring solution purpose-built for

+1 (866) 526 6700 www.eginnovations.comWendy.Howard@eginnovations.com
Thank You

Quantifying Genuine User Experience in Virtual Desktop Ecosystems

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