Accessing ICA RTT Metrics for Citrix HDX and XenDesktop and XenApp

Rachel Berry

10 years ago

One of the useful metrics available for ICA is a latency measurement known as the Round Trip Time (RTT). This is basically the time interval measured at the client between the first step (user action) and the last step (graphical response displayed). This metric can be thought of as a measurement of the screen lag that a user experiences while interacting with an application hosted in a session on a XenApp or XenDesktop Server.

ICA RTT is different from Network RTT (Roundtrip Time), which is the detected network latency between the ICA client device and the XenApp Server, while the ICA RTT includes an element of user interaction.

ICA RTT is available via Director, HDX Insights, EdgeSight but is also available via a WMI provider for third parties who wish to incorporate it into their own products or scripts. The RTT data is available on the VDA through EUEM WMI Providers. On RDS (XenApp) you will need to know the session ID you want to retrieve info for.

If Running the WMIC Command Line Tool You Will Need To Supply The Following Information

wmic:root\cli&gt;/namespace:\\root\citrix\euem
wmic:root\cli&gt;path citrix_euem_RoundTrip get /value

And The Response Will Be

FirstDrawRoundtripDuration=0                &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;Extra info around ICA RT that was only in Legacy Thinwire
FrameCutRoundtripDuration=0                &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;Extra info around ICA RT that was only in Legacy Thinwire
FrameSendRoundtripDuration=0             &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;Extra info around ICA RT that was only in Legacy Thinwire
InputBandwidthAvailable=39704816     &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt; WD Bandwidth estimate, Client-&gt;Server direction
InputBandwidthUsed=608
InstanceId=3925
NetworkLatency=11                                     &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt; WD to WD (passive) network latency last recorded (shows you how accurate the passive latency check is).
OutputBandwidthAvailable=77469208               &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;WD Bandwidth estimate, Server-&gt; Client direction
OutputBandwidthUsed=5096                            &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;Average Bytes/Second actually sent Server-&gt;Client
ProcessId=22ac8a68-5169-43e1-8dd2-ddf19dc07480
RoundtripTime=9                                &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt; ICA RTT result!
SessionID=4
Timestamp=20150310182613.140000+000
TriggerRoundtripDuration=0           &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;Extra info around ICA RT that was only in Legacy Thinwire
WDTriggerRoundtripDuration=0    &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;Extra info around ICA RT that was only in Legacy Thinwire

Other Queries Can Be Made Against The EUEM WMI Provider

path citrix_euem get /value will dump everything (startup, disconnects, ICART, blocked apps etc)

Individual Metric Categories Can Be Queried Via Subclasses

path citrix_euem_ApplicationLaunch get /value Published App start-up metrics (process loading times on the server, etc).
path citrix_euem_AutoReconnect get /value ACR and CGP metrics
path citrix_euem_clientConnect get /value Connection ID information, and some endpoint info
path citrix_euem_clientDisconnect get /value As per Connection ID info, but only showing sessions that are currently disconnected.
path citrix_euem_clientStartup get /value Detailed session startup timing information including how long different aspects of requesting the session, getting the ica file at the client, and instantiating the client engine on the endpoint.
path citrix_euem_ServerStartup get /value Detailed session startup timing information for how long different aspects of spinning up the user’s session took once the client had established an ICA connection to the server
path citrix_euem_RoundTrip get /value ICA Roundtrip data, plus some WD metrics from SMC for bandwidth and network latency
path citrix_euem_SessionTerminate get /value When sessions were logged off. Session Identity information is not retained, so consumers will need to know what these sessions mapped to when they were active to know who was using them.

More Information

The following command line tools which are shipped with Windows are particularly useful for exploring WMI:

Wbemtext.exe provides a graphical user interface (GUI)
Wmic.exe is a command line tool which can be used for accessing WMI

There are a number of external WMI explorers available.

If Running the WMIC Command Line Tool You Will Need To Supply The Following Information

And The Response Will Be

Other Queries Can Be Made Against The EUEM WMI Provider

Individual Metric Categories Can Be Queried Via Subclasses

Other Useful Links on HDX Metrics:

More Information