Performance Benchmarking and Analysis with Perfmon and PAL
Article ID: CTX133593
Updated On:
Description
Performance benchmarking and analysis is important to understand key server metrics at both idle and busy time periods. With a good benchmark it makes it possible to properly scale an environment and look for potential performance issues that may arise during usage.
This document is a starting guide to benchmarking XenApp 6.x on Windows Server 2008R2 using Perfmon and the Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) tool.
Requirements
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Windows Server 2008 R2
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XenApp 6.x
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Performance Monitor
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Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL)
Resolution
Configuring Perfmon
Performance Monitor Wizard (Perfwiz) tool assists in configuring common Perfmon counters for Terminal Services and Exchange. The tool is not supported on Windows Server 2008. Fortunately, 2008 easily configures custom data collector sets starting with a template.
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Launch Perfmon, Start > Run > Perfmon.
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Expand Data Collector Sets.
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Right-click User Defined, select New > Data Collector Set.
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Enter a Name for the Data Collector Set (Example: XenApp Performance).
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Ensure Create from a template is selected and click Next.
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Select System Performance and click Next.
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Enter Root Directory where data will be saved and click Next.
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Run as Default and click Finish.
This template adds a number of important performance counters. The next step is to add the XenApp related performance counters.
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Right-click Performance Counter,Select Properties in the Data Collect Set (XenApp Performance).
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Click Add.
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Select the following from the Available Counters list:
- Terminal Services
- Active Sessions
- Inactive Sessions
- Total Sessions
- Terminal Services Session
- % Privileged Time
- % Processor Time
- % User Time
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Citrix IMA Networking
- Handle Count
- Bytes Received/sec
- Bytes Sent/sec
- Network Connections
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Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server
- (All Counters)
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Right-click XenApp Performance (User Defined Data Collector Set) and select Properties, if you wish to define a schedule (Preferred to benchmarking).
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Click Start from the toolbar to begin the Data Collector Set.
Data Analysis with PAL
The Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) tool is available as a free download from CodePlex. PAL is a Powershell tool that will output the data it consumes into a nice HTML file that can be viewed with a browser.
- Download and run PAL.
- Click on Next in the Welcome screen.
- Browse to Counter Log Path configured earlier in PerfMon and select Next.
- Click Citrix XenApp for the Threshold file and click Next.
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Enter the appropriate system data:
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Number of Processors
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ThreeGBSwitch (should be false for 2k8r2)
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SixtyFourBit (should be true for 2k8r2)
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Total Memory
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Raid5Drives
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Raid1Drives
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Output options can be left as default, select Next.
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Select Output Directory and ensure HTML Output is selected, click Next, until Finish.
PowerShell begins executing and when it completes, the browser opens with a detailed report of the data collected.
Note: The analysis of the report is not covered in this guide as results may vary. It is important to have a good baseline under normal conditions before attempting to analyze a performance related issue. Once the baseline is established you can begin looking at Alerts in the reports that are generated to understand any hot spots that might arise.
PAL provides a fine breakdown in the report, starting with the tool parameters, which includes the Analysis Interval.
Some key Citrix metrics are shown including the IMA WorkItem Queue Ready Count, Data Store Failures, and busy XML Threads. Ensure to check Memory Allocations, CPU Resources, Disk and Network usage statistics.
Issue/Introduction
Additional Information
