Introduction
This blog post addresses two new features of VMware vRealize Operations for Horizon and Published Applications 6.4. The first is application-crash alerts for desktop applications. The second is a dashboard for root-cause analysis.
Part 1 of the blog-post series described what is new in vRealize Operations for Horizon and Published Applications 6.4. Part 2 discussed new support for monitoring VMware App Volumes, View in VMware Horizon 7, and VMware Access Point. Part 4 will provide information about memory usage, support, and enhancements.
Application-Crash Alerts for Desktop Applications
The new application-crash alerts for desktop applications monitor application status in a VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) environment or an RDS (Remote Desktop Services) session. This is vital to a successful implementation. In addition, knowing details about when and why an application crashed on a virtual desktop or an RD session is crucial to enabling you to successfully troubleshoot issues.
Figure 1 is a sample screenshot. The screenshot shows the Alert pane with the notification event generated at the time of an application crash, logged by the Windows event logs, and passed back into vRealize Operations Manager. The alert remains in the pane until the next login of the user into the virtual machine (VM) or RDS session.
Figure 1: Sample Screenshot of the Alert Pane with Notification Event Information
After you open the notification, you see a summary view of the crash, as shown in Figure 2. Here you can conduct a detailed investigation to troubleshoot and fix the cause of the application crash.
Figure 2: Summary Tab of the Notification Event Information
From the Summary window, you can expand the listed cause of the issue and get more information from the captured source-event log. Some of the other tabs, such as Impacted Object Symptoms, Timeline, Relationships, and Metric Charts, are available to further the investigation of the application crash.
Figure 3: Summary Window of “What Is Causing the Issue?”
Additionally, if you need to clear a large number of registered alerts from the pane, or if alerts are still visible in spite of the user’s next login, you can run cleanallstopobjects.jar to remove unwanted alerts. Detailed steps are outlined under the Known Issues section in the VMware vRealize Operations for Horizon 6.4 Release Notes.
New Dashboard for Root-Cause Analysis
It is important for you to be able to quickly go from receiving an alert to generating custom, historical reports that pinpoint the issue and fix it. The new dashboard provides you with a single window on which you can perform root-cause analyses.
The following screenshots show how you can use the Horizon End User Experience pane or the Horizon Help Desk pane to identify an issue using heat maps. From the Horizon End User Experience pane, navigate to the new Horizon Root Cause Analysis pane by following Steps 1 through 4 as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Navigating from the Horizon End User Experience Pane to the Horizon Root Cause Analysis Pane
Alternatively, follow the three steps shown in Figure 5 to navigate from the Horizon Help Desk pane to the new Horizon Root Cause Analysis pane shown in the vRealize Operations console (Figure 6).
Figure 5: Navigating from Horizon Help Desk Pane to Horizon Root Cause Analysis Pane
Depending on how you enter the Horizon Root Cause Analysis pane, you are presented with a relationship map and statistics specific to the object selected and its analysis snapshot. Clicking the individual object reveals more details in the metric chart.
Figure 6: From the Horizon Root Cause Analysis Pane, View Object Relationships and Their Metrics
You can navigate to the object relationship to view specific data and metrics. You can then drill down to the root cause of the problem, whether it is at a common storage level or an individual application within the RDS session or operating system.
Figure 7: Example of Horizon Root Cause Analysis and Ability to Drill Down into Related Objects
Part 1 of this blog series was an introduction to the new features in vRealize Operations for Horizon and Published Applications. In Part 2, we described the new support for monitoring VMware App Volumes, View in VMware Horizon 7, and VMware Access Point. In Part 4, we will describe memory usage, support, and enhancements.
