Scalability testing Parallels Remote Application Server with Login VSI

Login VSI had a booth on the expo at VMworld in Barcelona

While I can’t remember exactly how many conversations I had - there had been so many that I lost my voice on day one...

What was new this year is that quite a few people asked if our software is compatible with the solutions from Parallels specifically their Remote Application Server (RAS) (Datasheet).

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While I wasn’t exactly sure how it could be done, I’d seen some things come by in the past so I decided that once I was back in the lab I’d give it a go and set it up. As a tech guy I went right ahead and downloaded the bits and skipped on the documentation. Luckily one thing caught my eye. Could it be? Had someone already figured out how to do it? In this document by Parallels you find information regarding a 250 user test they executed recently on two HP DL360, 2x Xeon E5-2670, 128GB / Local storage machines using the task-worker workload.

Well that makes life easy, a document written by Parallels on how to do it. Nevertheless I moved forward with the installation to see for myself as some of the required settings have not been described in that document.

Below is an overview of the environment I’d like to build. It’s how a typical performance testing environment starts, first of all you have to make sure you’ve got a working Parallels RAS environment. Once that is completed we are going to add the Login VSI components: The launcher, management console and the file share.

 

 

My first attempts to figure out the command line to initiate TSclient.exe were not very successful but it turns out that if you use the full MSI installation you can set everything in the GUI, test if the connection works and then simply generate a shortcut on the desktop. This shortcut will contain all the information you need to start a session command-line.

 

 

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"C:\Program Files\Parallels\Client\TSClient.exe" s!='PARALLELS' t!='80' d!='nirvana' u!='loginVSI1' a!='#1' m!='2' o!='0' i!='parallels' r!='1' -q!='password'

 

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For further information about the command-line please check: here.

 

s	Hostname of the RAS server
t	Port of the RAS Remote Application
d	Domain name
u	Username
a	Published Application/Desktop ID
m	Connection mode 0 = Gateway mode 1 = Direct mode 2 = Gateway SSL mode 3 = Direct SSL 4 = Direct RDP
o	Use SSO credentials 0 = False 1 = True
i	Connection alias
r	Reconnect if connection is dropped
q	Password

 

To add this command-line to Login VSI start the Management console and browse to the Test Setup > Connection tab. We can then use placeholders from the connection details section to replace the auto-incrementing values e.g. the username. I’ve made my command-line as below. Please note that this does require the Parallels RAS client to be installed at the launcher. Alternatively, you can place a copy of the basic client in the File share (VSIshare).

 

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"C:\Program Files\Parallels\Client\TSClient.exe" s!='{server}' t!='80' d!='{domain}' u!='{username}' a!='#1' m!='2' o!='0' i!='parallels' r!='1' -q!='{password}'

 

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From there, it's business as usual and you’ll be able to start your first Login VSI performance test. Once testing at small scale has been completed make sure to test the full infrastructure or to keep monitoring the environment for unplanned changes in performance with Login PI.

To scale the environment simply add more Launchers and Targets to the environment and configure Login VSI to launch a bigger amount of users. The VSImax of your environment will automatically be determined after the test.

 

 

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