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Server Team Management

Server Team in HyWorks is a team or group of session host servers. Applications or desktop sessions are given from session host servers based on load balancing mechanism used in session server team configuration.

Session host servers team are managed from VDI > Session Servers > Server Teams section.

Types of Session Server Teams

Server Teams can be categorized into different types, based on member server operating system or team management:

Based on Server Operating Systems: Based on server operating systems, server teams can be of following types:

  • Linux Server Team: Server team having Linux session host servers.

  • Windows Server Team: Server team having Windows session host servers.

Based on Team Management:

Based on the fact, how the team and member servers will be managed, the teams can be of following two types:

  • Managed Team: This team is managed by HyWorks controller with provisioned session host pool, but administrator can only change limited settings from team or server wizards. Most of the configurations are being managed from source provisioned shared hosted desktop pool. No new servers can be added by administrator into managed teams from Session Servers page.

  • Un-managed Team: This is manually created team, administrator can add, update and delete team manually. Session servers have to be added manually into un-managed teams. The team is completely managed by HyWorks administrators.

server teams can be created for Linux or Widows session host servers.

Viewing Server Teams

Navigating to VDI > Session Servers > Server Teams page, lists the available server team and displays the following details of the server team using different columns:

  • Team name/Id: Name of server team and HyWorks internal team Id (The Id can be used in troubleshooting).

  • Team type/Capacity Plan Mode/ Schedule Id: Show information for team type and power management mode

    • Team type: Team type can be:

      • Managed
      • Not Managed

    • Capacity Plan Mode: For managed pools, power management mode can be:

      • Disabled
      • Monitor
      • Enforce

    • Schedule Id: Internal schedule Id of capacity plan

  • Limit session: Showing if team is enabled with CPU/RAM based thresholds.

  • Load balancing type: Type of load balancing mechanism

  • Connections/ Ready Server Utilizations: Number of sessions active on session host servers of the team and total utilization of ready servers.

  • Ready/ Draining Servers: Number of ready vs. draining servers in the server team.

  • Desktop Connections: Number of desktop session is active from session host servers of the team

  • Max / Min/ Provisioned Server(s): Show minimum and maximum number of server to be online.

    • Max Server: Upper limit for server to be online, based on session load.

    • Min server: Minimum server will be online, irrespective of session load.

    • Provisioned Servers: Number of servers provisioned in the team.

  • Scale Up / Scale Down utilization: Show scaling information of the server.

    • Scale Up utilization: New servers will be powered on, when team session load is higher than Scale up utilization

    • Scale Down utilization: Servers will be cordoned (no new session) and then will be powered on.

  • Defined In: If this server team is defined in the current organization

Administrator can search a server team by searching with appropriate search string in search textbox.

Before moving ahead in server teams configuration and management it's important to understand the server team load balancing in HyWorks.

HyWorks server team Load Balancing

HyWorks Controller starts load balancing the sessions among the member session host servers once multiple servers are added to a single server team. Follow section Server Team Load Balancing for detailed information on HyWorks load balancing types, mechanism, associated configurations and exceptions cases.

Default Teams

As specified in Organization section, that every organization has two default server teams: one for Windows session host servers and other for Linux session host servers

  • Default team cannot be deleted.

  • If any un-managed server team is deleted, then all session host servers of that team are moved to default teams

Default Team Configurations

The default configurations of default team in root (default) organization is as follows:

  1. Team Name: Windows Default/ Linux Default

    Note

    • If the organization is admin created organization, then the name of default team of that organization will follow below naming convention: Default Team_\<OrgName> e.g. if organization name is Accops, then name of the default team of organization Accops will be: Default Team Accops.

    • Modifying the organization name does not modify the name of default team.

  2. Team Type: Shared Session Host (Read-Only)

  3. Load Balancing Type: Weighted Least Connection

  4. Limit session: Not enabled

  5. Session Provider: List of session host servers (if any)

  6. Applications: List of applications (if any)

Viewing server team Members and Management Options

Clicking on the server team name, opens page displaying all member session host servers and displaying some essential information to administrator:

  1. At Title bar along with team name, load balancing type is specified

  2. Displaying lists of session host servers with following details:

    1. Name: Name of session host server

    2. Address: IP or hostname of session host server

    3. Version: Version of HyWorks Session Host Server module

    4. VM State: Reflecting current state of deployed session host server VM, the VMs can be in following states:

      • Not Provision: Pending for provisioning
      • Provisioning: Provisioning or deployment is in progress
      • Provisioning Failed: Shared hosted desktop provisioning is failed
      • Powered-off
      • Powering-on: Deployed shared hosted desktop is getting powered-on
      • Suspended
      • Rebooting: Deployed shared hosted desktop is restarting
      • Powered-on
      • Unknown: Any other state not defined as above

    5. Server Status: Providing status of the server as:

      • Ready: Provisioned+ SHD Agent Responding+Powered ON [Un-cordoned] + Active+ Connectivity
      • Draining: Provisioned+ SHD Agent Responding+Powered ON [Cordoned] + Active+ Connectivity
      • Not ready: Server is not ready for connection
      • Unknown: Any other statue than defined above

    6. Active: Show server is active or not

    7. Connectivity: If session host server is reachable on specified RDP port

    8. Session Host Agent Status: If session host server module is up and running

    9. Monitoring Service Status: Reachability of monitoring service from HyWorks Controller

    10. Session Mode: Is new session is allowed or not on server. A right tick mark represents server is available (un-cordoned) for new session.

    11. Connections: Number of application or shared hosted desktop sessions on session host server

    12. CPU (%): CPU (%) usage on session host server

    13. RAM (%): RAM (%) usage on session host server

    14. Disk (%): Disk (%) utilization on session host server

    15. Score: Current score of session host server (Calculated and displayed for load balancing types, Weighted Least Connection and Adaptive).

    16. Weight: Weight of session host server (Weight is configured while adding session host server into team with load balancing type as Weighted Round Robin or Weighted Least Connection.

Administrator can use this information to analyze the overall status of the session host server, especially information of server status, session host agent and monitoring service status, sessions, resource (RAM, CPU and Disk) are important and should be monitored regularly.

Add New server team

Adding an Un-managed Server Team

  1. Go to Session Servers > Server Teams

  2. Click Add Team

  3. Provide the following details in server team Basic Info:

    1. Team for: Select from option Windows/ Linux based on type of session host servers to be added into this team

    2. Team Name: Any logical name for the new server team, following special characters are supported in Team Name field: _ SPACE () {} # @ : -

    3. Team Type: Read-only field and default value is Shared Session Host

  4. Following details to be filled in Load Balancing

    1. Load Balancing Type: Select appropriate Load Balancing Type, following types of load balancing is supported

      1. Weighted Round Robin

      2. Weighted Least Connection

      3. Adaptive

      Refer HyWorks server team Load Balancing for details.

    2. Limit session: Enable Limit session option to stop providing sessions from session host server reaching the either of the following two configurations

      1. CPU Max Limit

      2. RAM Max Limit

  5. Provider Virtual IP address details in Network Settings, if session host IP virtualization is needed. Refer the Virtual IP Address section for more details.

    1. Enable session virtual IP address: Set it to enable session virtual IP address support.
    2. Select Network Card from Multiple NICs: If multiple network cards are available on the server then select the preferred network card on the server to be used for attaching virtual IPs.
    3. IP Address or IP Range: Enter a comma separated IP addresses or IP range which can be used with appropriate subnet mask. Examples of valid IP format: 192.168.0.241, 192.168.0.1-192.168.0.255.
    4. Subnet Mask: Enter subnet mask which will be used to assign virtual IP address on server along with one of given IP address, subnet mask bit should be valid values like 255,252,248,240,224,192,128 and 0.

  6. Assign application to team from Application Tab

    • To add application click Add. select one or more applications from list and click Save.
    • To remove selected application, select application(s) and click Remove Apps.

  7. Click Save

New server team will be created and will be displayed in Session Teams page. The team now will also be displayed in Session Provider section while adding the Shared Session Host.

Adding Managed Server Team

Managed server team can not be added from server teams section but it is created automatically with the deployment of provisioned shared hosted desktop pools. Only few attributes of managed server teams can be modified by administrator from server teams section and it is majorly controlled from shared hosted desktop pool wizard configurations.

Modify server team

  1. Go to Session Servers > Server Teams

  2. Select the server team to be modified

  3. Click Edit

  4. Change the configurations as needed in Edit server team wizard, following configurations can be changed:

    1. Server team Basic Info tab:

      1. Team Name

      2. Power Management Mode (for managed teams)

    2. Load Balancing tab:

      1. Load Balancing Type

      2. Limit session

    3. Session Provider tab:

      1. The list of session provider is shown

      2. Status of each session provider is shown

      3. It is possible to do following settings on session providers

        1. Make Active or Inactive

        2. Change the Weight of the server (Applicable for 'Un-managed' server teams only)

        3. Change Max Sessions (For 'Not Un-managed' team only)

    4. Network Setting Tab:

      1. Change the Virtual IP address configuration.

    5. Application Tab:

      1. Add or remove applications to the team

  5. Click Save

Server team's configurations will be modified, and controller will start using new configurations from next session. Team information will be updated in all associated configurations e.g. Session Providers, Desktop Pools etc.

Impact of Changing server team Configurations

Changing Load Balancing Type could affect the configuration of the member session host servers in the following manner. Consider the following scenario:

  1. Two session host servers are added into a server team (with adaptive Load balancing).

    Note

    • Adding session host servers into Adaptive load balancing team, it does not require any weight configuration, on the other hand configuration of Weighted Round Robin or Weighted Least Connection requires weight configuration.

  2. Now if administrator is changing the load balancing type from Adaptive to Weighted Round Robin or Weighted Least Connection then session host servers will be required to have some weight configuration.

  3. Impact on Member Session Providers: Default weight of a session host server will be set to 100 in following conditions

    1. Load Balancing Type of server team is changed from Adaptive to Weighted Least Connection

    2. Load Balancing Type of server team is changed from Adaptive to Weighted Round Robin

  4. Impact on Virtual IP address assignments: Change in virtual IP address will be reflected from next application or desktop pool access. Any virtual IP address assigned permanently to the user, will be changed on next connection, if new virtual IP addresses do not belong to previous configurations.

  5. Impact on Associated Users (Built-In): No adverse impact is expected on user/group configuration.

  6. Impact on running session: No adverse effect is expected

  7. Impact on Built-in User Association: No adverse effect

  8. Impact on Desktop Pools: No adverse effect

Delete server team

Administrator can delete a server team from server teams page using the steps provided below:

Note

  • Default teams and managed teams cannot be deleted.

  • Managed server teams get deleted automatically with the deletion of source provisioned shared hosted desktop pools.

  1. Go to Session Servers > Server Teams

  2. Select the server team to be deleted

  3. Click Delete

  4. Confirm Action dialog will be displayed, click on Delete button to continue deleting the server team.

  5. server team will be deleted and following impact could be there:

    1. Impact on Member Session Providers:

      1. Session host servers, members of deleted server team will move to Default server team

      2. Default weight of a session host servers will be set to 100 in following conditions

        1. Admin configured server team with Load Balancing Type as Adaptive is deleted and default team is of type Weighted Least Connection

        2. Admin configured server team with load balancing type as Adaptive is deleted and default team is of type Weighted Round Robin

    2. Impact on Associated Desktop Pools:

      1. Desktop Pools will be deleted, and users won't be able to get new sessions from the same team (member session host servers) any more

      2. Running sessions won't get disconnected/ removed

    3. Impact on Applications:

      1. Applications and entitlements will remain same

    4. Impact on Built-in users:

      1. Built-in Users association with server team will be deleted and thus the user accounts won't be able to get any new sessions. Pl. Note this behavior is for Built-in users only.

    5. Impact on Virtual IP address assignments: Any virtual IP address assigned permanently to the user from this team, then virtual IP address assignment will be deleted.

Add Session Host Server into server team

Session Host servers can be added into server teams from Session Servers > Servers section using Add or Edit Server wizards.

Session host servers will get added to server team selected in Add/Edit Server wizard > Server team dropdown.

Note

Session host servers can only be added into admin created server teams (Un-managed) and can not be added into provisioned (Managed) server teams.

Exporting Server Teams and Virtual IP Details

Exporting Server Teams

HyWorks Controller having option to export CSV of all teams in current organization from management console. To export CSV of session teams:

  1. Go to HyWorks Controller Management Console -> Server -> server teams
  2. Click Export
  3. Select Encoding type and columns
  4. Click Export
  5. CSV with details of all server teams will be downloaded.

Exporting Session with Virtual IP address details

Virtual IP address will be assigned to a shared hosted desktop session or application session for a user if the virtual IP address settings are enabled on application or pool. Export VIP Sessions feature help to get all the sessions with the virtual IP addresses assigned along with user details:

  1. Go to HyWorks Controller Management Console -> Server -> server teams
  2. Click Export VIP Sessions
  3. Select Encoding type and columns
  4. Click Export
  5. CSV with details of all session with virtual IP address information will be downloaded.

Exporting Problematic Virtual IP address

Problematic virtual IP address is defined as an IP address, which is having conflict in network and session host was not able to apply that correctly. To get a list of problematic virtual IP addresses:

  1. Go to HyWorks Controller Management Console -> Server -> server teams
  2. Click Export All Problematic VIP
  3. Select Encoding type and columns
  4. Click Export
  5. CSV with details of all problematic virtual IP address will be downloaded.

Exporting Permanent Virtual IP address

  1. Go to HyWorks Controller Management Console -> Server -> server teams
  2. Click Export Permanent VIP
  3. Select Encoding type and columns
  4. Click Export
  5. CSV with details of permanent virtual IP address assignment with user will be downloaded.

Session Host Server Operations from Server Teams

Following options can be performed on Session Host Servers from server teams page:

  1. Upgrade Session Host Server

  2. Download Session Host Server Logs

  3. Sync Session Info

Upgrade Session Host Server

Session Host Servers upgrade can be initiated from HyWorks Controller Management Console. Following prerequisites should be fulfilled to perform session host upgrade successfully from management console:

Prerequisites:

  1. Session Host Server Agent is up and running

  2. Session host upgrade file is available on HyWorks Controller (Usually copied during HyWorks Controller upgrade, but if provided separately, then should be copied at the following location:

    HyWorks Controller Installation Directory>/Accops/HyWorks/Service/SessionHost/

    Below is the default location:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Accops\HyWorks\Service\SessionHost

  3. There should not be any remote session on session host server. Any existing session can cause upgrade failure as many of files are in use in running sessions.

Upgrade Process:

Once all the prerequisites are fulfilled, upgrade process is very simple as described below:

  1. Select session host server to be upgraded from the list

  2. Click Upgrade

  3. Confirm Action dialog will be displayed, with following details:

    1. If remote sessions exist on selected session host server, then it will prompt error for remote sessions and administrator must remove all sessions from server before initiating upgrade.

    2. If no remote sessions exist on session host server then Confirm Action dialog will be displayed.

    Important

    • Having existing remote sessions on session host server could affect installation of HyWorks components and it's recommended to logout all sessions before upgrade

    • Once upgrade is initiated no more sessions will be allowed on the respective session host server.

  4. Confirm the upgrade option by clicking Upgrade

  5. Upgrade will be initiated

    1. Refresh the server teams page to check the status of session host server upgrade

    2. Session host server will go into maintenance mode for upgrade to avoid any connection requests during upgrade and after successful upgrade

  6. Version of session host server should now be displaying newer version.

  7. Check logs for more details on session host upgrade

Download Session Host Server Logs

Administrator can download the session host server logs from server teams page. To download session host server logs, follow the below steps:

  1. Go to Server > server teams

  2. Click server team name to view list of session host servers

  3. Select the session host server

  4. Click Download Logs

Logs will be downloaded in zipped format and success status will be shown.

Sync Session Info

The operation can be used to synchronize session information between HyWorks Controller and respective session host server. It helps in cleaning session discrepancies between controller and session host server.

Important Configurations Of Server Teams

RDP Throttling

In RDP launch from server, if number of session launch from same server at very high rate then windows server may give RDP busy message and session will not be launched. The error remote desktop service is busy visible in the RDP and windows will not to create new session.

This feature allows spacing before new RDP connection on same server. Advance config flag for RDP throttling, Search RDP throttling (under Session Management group) and set value in millisecond , default value is 0 means no throttling.

Example:

  1. Throttle Time is 2000 millisecond and load balancing type is Least Connection for a team

  2. Application1 is published from Server1, Server2, Server3.

  3. Each server having 10 running sessions.

  4. Now added new server(server4 in team) and assigned same application and has no session running on the server.

  5. User1 launches Application1 then HyWorks controller choose server4, because Server4 having least connection than the other servers in team.

  6. User2 trying to launch same Application1 in next 1000 millisecond.

  7. Then HyWorks will not select Server4, since 2000 millisecond spacing window yet to complete and it will chose next best least connection server.

Condition: If no server found if sessions launched from all servers in throttle time. So to manage this condition, added one more control flag, called Strict Remote Desktop Throttling.

Strict Remote Desktop Throttling: In RDP throttling if there is no server that meet the throttling criteria then HyWorks controller will not provide session. If this value is false then throttling criteria will not be enforced and next least available server will be provided .

To manage Strict Remote Desktop Throttling, go to advance settings-> search for Strict Remote Desktop Throttling flag under Session Management group.

RDP Throttling having many different scenario:

  1. Application launch mode is either Remote App or Shell App from connection profile.

  2. Application either launch in existing WTS session or create new WTS session for same user,

  3. Strict Mode is on or off for RDP throttling.

Based on above scenario, HyWorks will check for RDP throttling and retry or reject connection, Check below table for more details.

Max connection on session host server

This feature allow maximum RDP connection from particular server. This will limit connection from server. If value is zero then will provide unlimited connection. default value is zero.

This feature useful to avoid server being over-utilized.

To enable this feature go to Advance settings -> search for Max connection on session host server under Session Management group.