Symptoms
Customers require a way to monitor Server Services through Resource Manager.
Background
From the Resource Manager Administrator’s Guide: CTX106471 – Resource Manager Administrator's Guide
Chapter 3 - Monitoring Servers and Applications in Real Time
Configuring Application Metrics
Resource Manager monitors only one metric for each application. This is the Count metric, which maintains a count of how many instances of specific applications are running in the server farm, and notifies you if the number of instances of a monitored application reaches a defined limit. This enables you to manage application licenses.
You can monitor all published applications. You can also monitor applications that are not explicitly published, for example, because the desktop itself is published, or because you are not deploying the application through MetaFrame Presentation Server. To do this, you need to set up the application as a Resource Manager application. See the Resource Manager online help system for more information.
From the Resource Manager online help within the Management Console:
Managing applications:
You can use Resource Manager to count how many instances of specific applications are running in the server farm, and to notify you if the number of instances reaches a defined limit. This helps you to manage application licenses.
You can monitor all MetaFrame Presentation Server published applications.
You can also monitor applications that have not been published in MetaFrame Presentation Server. To do this, you need to set up the application as a Resource Manager application.
AND
Resource Manager Applications
You can use Resource Manager to keep a count of how many instances of specific applications are running in the server farm. This enables you to manage application licenses. You can monitor all MetaFrame Presentation Server published applications.
However, you may also want to keep a count for applications that run on the MetaFrame Presentation Server computer, but are not published using MetaFrame Presentation Server. The Resource Manager Application wizard enables you to start monitoring a non-published application by setting it up as a Resource Manager application.
Resolution
All information has been obtained from the Resource Manager online help within the Management Console. Please consult the online help for further details.
1. To set up a Resource Manager application (only completing this task may result in inaccurate results):
a. In the left pane of the Console, select the Applications folder, then from the Actions menu select New, then Resource Manager Application.
b. Follow the instructions in the Resource Manager Application wizard.
Setting farm-wide collection restrictions
If you are collecting farm-wide metrics for your summary database and find too much information is being stored, you can limit the collected processes to server farm applications (published applications and Resource Manager applications) only.
2. To set farm-wide collection restrictions
a. In the left pane of the Console, click Resource Manager.
b. In the right pane, click the Summary Database tab.
c. Click Configure.
d. In the Summary Database Configuration dialog box, under Collection Restrictions, select the Limit collected processes to farm applications check box.
e. Click OK.
Reporting on process activity
By default, Resource Manager monitors all processes running on the servers, except the following:
• System processes
• Processes that are running under the System account
• Processes related to Resource Manager itself
AND
Ignoring specific processes on a server
You can set up a list of processes that Resource Manager will not monitor, nor record in a summary database, nor report on for a selected server. You can also choose to monitor the processes that Resource Manager ignores by default.
When a process is set to be ignored, all instances of that process are ignored. That is, if there are copies of the same process in different locations on the server, no matter which instance is being run, it is ignored.
When you identify a set of processes to ignore on one server, you can copy these settings to other servers.
By default, Resource Manager monitors all processes running on the servers, except the following:
• System processes
• Processes that are running under the System account
• Processes related to Resource Manager itself
3. To specify ignored processes on a server (reverse this logic):
a. In the left pane of the Console, expand the Servers folder and select the server for which you want to specify ignored processes.
b. From the Actions menu, select Properties.
c. In the Properties dialog box, click Ignored Processes.
d. Click Add Process.
e. In the Add Process to Ignore dialog box, type the exact name of the process, for example, explorer.exe, then click OK. The process is added to the list of ignored processes for the server and all instances of it are ignored.
f. To resume monitoring for a process, click the process name in the list of ignored processes and click Delete Process.
g. If you want to ignore all system processes on the server, select the Ignore system processes check box.
h. To use Resource Manager's default list of ignored processes, select the Use defaults check box.
i. Click OK.
To change a process name, select it from the list, then click Edit Process.
4. Generate a Current or Summary Process Report to ensure the process is being monitored.
5. For the Count Metric on the Resource Manager Application, uncheck to box for Metric Values are Incremental and set up the Red Threshold to “Zero” (as if the service was stopped) and set the Yellow Threshold to 2 (as only one instance of a service executable would expected to be running).
6. Set up an alert, if desired, for the Red Threshold.
Note: Setting the Yellow Threshold to a value greater then the number of running instance produces an unexpected Yellow alert. Citrix is currently investigating this cosmetic issue. In the interim, maximize the Time before yellow alert is sent and Period of time the metric is snoozed for to help minimize the appearance of the Yellow Alert in the Management Console. Setting the Red Threshold to zero behaves as expected.
