Analyze Citrix HDX Bandwidth

We are happy to announce a new script based action package named Analyze Network Issues. The trigger for the announcement is the release of two brand new scripts now available in the ControlUp script library (under Community Actions) and the upcoming release of ControlUp 6.0, which introduces new HDX session bandwidth-related columns. This article will cover the two new scripts and outline the new script package.

The Analyze Network Issues package consists of three unique scripts:

1. Analyze High Latency Issues delivers a breakdown of the Protocol Latency column into all the phases between the XenApp/VDI machine and the end-user device, using the tracert.exebuilt-in-windows command.
2. Analyze Citrix HDX Bandwidth – following the release of ControlUp 6, which extends the protocol bandwidth metrics to HDX sessions as well as PCoIP sessions, Analyze HDX Bandwidth drills down to provide the breakdown of the HDX protocol into its virtual channels.
3. PCoIP Bandwidth Usage Details – in ControlUp 5 we released a new column named Protocol Bandwidth for PCoIP displaying the session bandwidth in kbps. PCoIP Bandwidth Usage Details were introduced in March 2016 and provide a breakdown of the PCoIP session bandwidth into its virtual channels. See our previous blog for more details.

Analyze high Latency Issues

Analyze High Latency Issues allows ControlUp users to further drill down and explore a specific session(s) suffering from high latency (whether PCoIP or HDX). The script utilizes the tracert.execommand to run automatically and check the latency between the hops from the XenApp/VDI machine to the end user’s device.
Please note that Analyze High Latency Issues typically takes two to three minutes to bring back results. In order to avoid timeout issues please use the script editor to extend the timeout duration as needed.

Analyze Citrix HDX Bandwidth

With the introduction of ControlUp 6 we extended the Protocol Bandwidth columns to support both PCoIP and HDX sessions. Now the column displays the bandwidth of a given HDX session’s consumption in kbps.

• The Protocol Bandwidth- Session Avg column shows the average of the last twenty samples taken of HDX or PCoIP session bandwidth.
• The Protocol Bandwidth – Last Recorded column displays the last recorded sample of an HDX or PCoIP session bandwidth.

Since Citrix Director lacks the ability to perform a breakdown of the HDX protocol into its virtual channels, Sysadmins who need this valuable information and do not have the Citrix HDX insights product (which requires Netscaler) can use Analyze HDX Bandwidth to get the stats on the breakdown of the virtual channels, as seen below:

Analyze Citrix HDX Bandwidth utilizes the get counter command to deliver the stats. By default, Analyze HDX Bandwidth samples the counters ten times. This can be configured within the script by modifying the “$Samples” var from ten to any number of your choice. Please note that increasing the number of samples will, in turn, increase the run time of the script. Every sample takes approximately one second. The recommended best practice is to use a value between five and three hundred. The script’s timeout is six hundred seconds.