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Quantifying User Experience
in
Virtual Ecosystems
Wendy Howard
Technical Consultant
eG Innovations

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

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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.?

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Virtual Environment Challenges

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What can impact the User Experience?
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• 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

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Popular Virtualization Architectures

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Citrix
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VMware Horizon
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Source: Navico.com

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Microsoft
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What do they all have in common?
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Wrong Ways to ‘Calculate’ your User’s Experience
Trouble Tickets
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SupportCalls
Emotional data
Downtime %

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Parts of the User Experience
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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

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Parts of the User Experience
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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…

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Round Trip

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

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Network Latency= RTT
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• 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

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Logons

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Logon KPIs
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“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

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

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

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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.
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“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

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Response Time = Latency
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• 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

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Bandwidth

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Bandwidth Usage
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• 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

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Bandwidth Usage
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• 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.

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User Experience and Connection Quality
Bandwidth + Response Time + Latency =
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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

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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

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Do’s and Don’ts of Monitoring User Experience

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

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© eG Innovations, Inc. | www.eginnovations.com
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

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