FAQ

ControlUp is a Citrix Ready product verified with the following versions: Citrix XenApp 5.x, 6.x and 7.x and XenDesktop 5.x and 7.x.

Screenshot from – http://www.citrix.com/ready/en/smart-x/controlup

ControlUp supports VMware View 5.x and Horizon View 6.x

Yes, ControlUp Scheduled Export feature enables auto-exporting any information grid view to a CSV file on a scheduled basis (for example, the ControlUp real-time performance data can be exported every 5 minutes to a local / remote file folder). The ControlUp Reporter utility enables admins to analyze the exported CSV files and create graphical Excel reports. A step-by-step by guide and a report sample can be found in this User Session Activity report blog.

Yes, ControlUp Incident Triggers allow you to monitor specific incidents in your environment, including whenever a computer or process cross a certain stress level, Windows Events, Services and others. The follow-up actions include an e-mail alert option, so ControlUp admins can be notified via e-mail in real-time when important incidents occur in their environment. Read more / See Video.

Yes, the ControlUp Security Policy is a mechanism that allows for configuring user roles and delegating administrative tasks to different ControlUp users on your network. This is especially useful in large enterprise environments in which dedicated administrators or teams are responsible for specific machines or server farms. In addition, you can use our ADMX template to restrict the ControlUp user interface via Group Policies – Read more.

The Stress Level column is a flexible health measure calculated as a sum of weights assigned to different columns. For example, the “CPU” column might add 2 points to the Stress Level when it crosses the 70% threshold, while the “Disk Queue” column might add 3 points after crossing the threshold of 2. In order to investigate the reason for a current Stress Level value of a record, click on the Stress Level cell and then click on the triangle in the upper right corner of the cell. You will see a list of counters and their contributions to the total Stress Level of the record. You can configure this behavior by clicking on the “Stress Level” button, located on the ribbon bar. The same is possible for any performance counter cell not at the “green” level. Read more / Watch Video

By default, ControlUp works in an online mode if Internet connectivity is available. If your network is not connected to the Internet, please use the Login Wizard to submit a Standalone (Offline) Registration Form:

If your computer has an Internet connection, you will not see the option to submit a Standalone Registration Form. In order to make this option visible, please add the following registry value before launching ControlUp:

After we finish processing your Standalone registration file, you will receive an e-mail from support@controlup.com (please white-list this address) including your Standalone (Offline) login file that will enable you to work with ControlUp without connecting to ControlUp Cloud servers.

ControlUp users working in Standalone Mode can transfer their settings to their colleagues by copying the configuration files in the following location – [cd id=2] The configuration (e.g. managed computers list, folders, thresholds…) is stored in an XML file named after the GUID of your ControlUp organization. In order to share your configuration with other admins, simply copy your organization’s XML file(s) and make sure they place them under “ [cd id=2]” folder on the computer they use the run the ControlUp console. (Note: Your saved credentials are encrypted and safe. Sharing your ControlUp configuration does not allow use of your saved credentials by other users).

Yes, you can use ControlUp to manage multiple AD domains and forests, even if no trusts exist between them. In order to configure multiple AD forest support, simply click on the “AD Connections” button on the Settings ribbon. In this window you can add any domain, provided its name is resolvable using DNS and you have valid credentials. Most issues with connecting to foreign Active Directory domains and forests are DNS-related and can be solved by configuring DNS conditional forwarders from your primary DNS servers.

Automatic reconnection requires a one-time manual configuration. Please follow these steps:

1. Under the organization tree on the left, turn on the checkbox that says “Show auto-connect state”. The tree should now display a checkbox next to every folder / computer, while an enabled checkbox indicates that this object will be reconnected automatically.
2. Turn on the checkboxes for all Hypervisors / computers which you would like to be monitored automatically. You can also turn this option for entire folders (or the root folder, to affect the entire organization).

Turn off the “Show auto-connect state” checkbox when done. ControlUp will attempt to connect to the selected computers every 5 minutes.

Installing or removing software using the “Programs and Updates” controller is not supported. However, you can use the “Processes > Run As” action in the Computers view to run the install/uninstall command for any software on multiple machines. Please note that this method is unsuitable for installation/removal routines that require user intervention.

Yes. When comparing objects using the controllers, the columns that you can currently see are used for comparison. By clicking the “Columns” button on the ribbon bar you can configure which columns are displayed:

For example, say you would like to compare the versions of a program installed on multiple machines, while ignoring the differences in the installation path or install date. To do so, click the “Columns” button and deselect all columns except “Version”. Hit “Refresh” and the updated view will only show differences in version, but not in other columns.

Yes. To do so, just click and drag the border between the row headers. All the rows will be adjusted to match the height you selected, so that you can stretch your rows to fill the screen or squeeze them to fit more data. Also, don’t forget the Full Screen mode, designed especially for control room displays – just hit F11 and switch to full screen mode

ControlUp’s licensing packages are based on three parameters:

1. The size of your managed environment in terms of concurrent user sessions
   The total session count is a sum of end user sessions and system (services) sessions.
   • On RDS servers, ControlUp counts every user session (CCU) (+2 system sessions for the server itself).
   • On a workstation, ControlUp counts a single session whenever a user is logged on to the workstation.
   • Each server of any other kind (DC, Exchange, SQL, File Servers, etc.) is counted as 5 sessions by ControlUp, even if no users are currently logged on to it.

   For example, if you are monitoring 15 RDS servers with 10 user sessions each, 50 client computers with one user session each and 20 general-purpose servers (Exchange, DC, SQL, etc.), ControlUp will count these as 330 cumulative sessions. (15*(10+2) (For RDS) + 50*1 (for workstations) + 20*5 (for other servers) = 330 sessions)

   You can view ControlUp’s current and peak sessions consumption in the licensing window within ControlUp. In order to open the licensing window, click the “About” button on the Help ribbon and then click the “Licensing” button.

2. The number of ControlUp users
   (A ControlUp user is typically a systems administrator, technical specialist, or support technician working with ControlUp Console). Every ControlUp user is required to create an online login account, which is used for user identification and licensing. ControlUp user licenses are named licenses.

3. The ControlUp edition you selected
   We currently offer 2 editions, Enterprise or Professional (see our pricing page for features comparison between the Enterprise and Professional editions)

ControlUp agents, deployed remotely onto added computers, provide you with:

In-depth monitoring

• Detailed machine-level/session performance metrics
• Assessment of computer stress level
• Locate and rapidly isolate issues affecting end users

Advanced management actions

• Manage systems services, registry and file system of multiple machines simultaneously
• Interact with user sessions, controlling their state and activity
• Run, terminate, or limit resource consumption for any process on your network

Configuration comparison of different computers with respect to

• Registry values and keys
• System services, including startup type, current state, and credentials
• Software packages and updates installed
• Irregular or non-uniform configurations of file systems

ControlUp agents have minimal performance impact

• CPU usage – consistently 0% to 1%
• RAM consumption – 60 to 90 MB
• I/O – zero disk activity
• No software hooks, no drivers and no reboot needed

Prerequisites for ControlUp agents

• Windows OS (all versions supported, from Windows XP to Server 2012 R2)
• .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 or 4.5
• Single incoming TCP port (by default 40705) open for ongoing console/monitor communications
• RPC and WMI access for initial deployment via the console, if access not available manual installation can be done using an MSI package

Here are the prerequisites for the ControlUp Agent:

• Windows operating system (all Windows versions are supported, Windows XP to Windows Server 2012 R2)
• Net Framework 3.5 SP1 or .Net Framework 4.5
• Single incoming TCP port (40705 by default) open for ongoing console / monitor communications.
• RPC and WMI access for initial ControlUp agent deployment via the console. If RPC/WMI access is not available the agent can be installed manually using the agent MSI package.

During the initial agent deployment process ControlUp uses RPC, WMI and the ControlUp default TCP port (40705) to complete the installation process. Here is a list of common agent deployment issues and their suggested solutions:
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The ControlUp agent is a lightweight component that was designed from the ground up to enable rapid deployment and minimal performance footprint on the managed computer. The expected CPU usage is 0% with 1%-2% spikes, RAM usage should be approximately 70MB and IOPS counters for the agent executable should normally show zero activity. The ControlUp agent does NOT use system-level drivers, API hooks or any other intrusive monitoring techniques. No compatibility issues or collisions between the ControlUp agent and other software packages or OS components have been reported.

No. ControlUp agent deployment and removal do not require a reboot of the managed computer. By default, ControlUp Agent is deployed in temporary mode, which means that the agent uninstalls automatically after a period of inactivity.

ControlUp does not save any unique data on the managed computers, so there is no need for additional preparations when creating a master image using Citrix PVS, MCS or VMware linked clone technologies. We recommend deploying the ControlUp agent on the master image in “Installed Agent Mode” to enable faster connections from the ControlUp console.

ControlUp agents, deployed remotely onto added computers, provide you with:

In-depth monitoring

• Detailed machine-level/session performance metrics
• Assessment of computer stress level
• Locate and rapidly isolate issues affecting end users

Advanced management actions

• Manage systems services, registry and file system of multiple machines simultaneously
• Interact with user sessions, controlling their state and activity
• Run, terminate, or limit resource consumption for any process on your network

Configuration comparison of different computers with respect to

• Registry values and keys
• System services, including startup type, current state, and credentials
• Software packages and updates installed
• Irregular or non-uniform configurations of file systems

ControlUp agents have minimal performance impact

• CPU usage – consistently 0% to 1%
• RAM consumption – 60 to 90 MB
• I/O – zero disk activity
• No software hooks, no drivers and no reboot needed

Prerequisites for ControlUp agents

• Windows OS (all versions supported, from Windows XP to Server 2012 R2)
• .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 or 4.5
• Single incoming TCP port (by default 40705) open for ongoing console/monitor communications
• RPC and WMI access for initial deployment via the console, if access not available manual installation can be done using an MSI package

Here are the prerequisites for the ControlUp Agent:

• Windows operating system (all Windows versions are supported, Windows XP to Windows Server 2012 R2)
• Net Framework 3.5 SP1 or .Net Framework 4.5
• Single incoming TCP port (40705 by default) open for ongoing console / monitor communications.
• RPC and WMI access for initial ControlUp agent deployment via the console. If RPC/WMI access is not available the agent can be installed manually using the agent MSI package.

During the initial agent deployment process ControlUp uses RPC, WMI and the ControlUp default TCP port (40705) to complete the installation process. Here is a list of common agent deployment issues and their suggested solutions:

The ControlUp agent is a lightweight component that was designed from the ground up to enable rapid deployment and minimal performance footprint on the managed computer. The expected CPU usage is 0% with 1%-2% spikes, RAM usage should be approximately 70MB and IOPS counters for the agent executable should normally show zero activity. The ControlUp agent does NOT use system-level drivers, API hooks or any other intrusive monitoring techniques. No compatibility issues or collisions between the ControlUp agent and other software packages or OS components have been reported.

No. ControlUp agent deployment and removal do not require a reboot of the managed computer. By default, ControlUp Agent is deployed in temporary mode, which means that the agent uninstalls automatically after a period of inactivity.

ControlUp does not save any unique data on the managed computers, so there is no need for additional preparations when creating a master image using Citrix PVS, MCS or VMware linked clone technologies. We recommend deploying the ControlUp agent on the master image in “Installed Agent Mode” to enable faster connections from the ControlUp console.

The short answer is yes. Our permission delegation and multi Network/AD forest support enable multi-tenancy. ControlUp supports different types of MSP topologies:

• In a simple scenario, MSPs have a single data center and network that is supported by a single AD forest. As a result, all of the tenants reside on the same infrastructure that is located in the same network and use the same AD forest. This scenario is simple because it acts just like any enterprise that ControlUp supports out-of-the-box.
• In a more complex environment, MSPs can use a multi AD forest with different networks (subnets) that may or may not be connected. An MSP can have separate forests for each tenant and separate physical locations for each forest. Of course, each MSP works differently. One may have multiple tenants working on the same infrastructure and network while a few other tenants may need their own networks (due to specific security constraints, for example).

Again, the short answer is yes. For multi-AD support, where a single console supports multiple (untrusted) AD forests, the following prerequisites apply:

• The computer running the console should have LDAP access to the relevant AD forests’ Domain Controllers.
• DNS conditional forwarding should be configured so the computer running the console is able to resolve any relevant AD DNS entry in the external forest.
• The console should have valid AD credentials in the external forest.

In order to support multiple external networks, the following prerequisites apply:

• The ControlUp agent needs to be pre-installed on the relevant target computers (the agent MSI package can be used to accomplish this).
• A single incoming TCP port (40705 by default) must be opened on the external network to support console–agent communication.
• For Hypervisor support, incoming HTTPS port (443) has to be opened on the external network to support console-Hypervisor communication.
• From a bandwidth point of view, each console-agent channel will consume ~1 KB/s.

ControlUp’s security policy feature enables customers to create a separate role for each tenant. By using our folder structure, each tenant can be limited to solely view and manage his/her individual environment. Learn more.

ControlUp’s analytics and reporting capabilities include performance trend analysis, detecting major bottlenecks and VDI historical performance and usage reports. With ControlUp’s user session activity reports, you can track each customer’s activity and see how they utilize your system, then charge them accordingly.

If you have a ticketing system, like ServiceDesk or SysAid, you can use ControlUp’s URL feature to enable your help desk users to automatically launch the ControlUp console from a specific ticket screen, focus on a specific user’s performance in real time, and trigger a Remote Assistance session in order to quickly take other remedial actions.