Login VSI v4 Sneak Peek! New Version Releasing Tomorrow, May 2nd!

I’ve been an avid user of Login Consultant’s Login VSI (http://www.loginvsi.com) product for the last couple years, so it’s very exciting to me to have the privilege of evaluating the latest version as a pre-release!  There are a ton of significant enhancements in this next major release, and I’m looking forward to digging into each of the new features as I continue to use this product for customer benchmarks and baselines. In addition to these enhancements, the product has been completely overhauled from a User Interface (UI) perspective, giving it a Windows 8 / 2012 “tiles” look and feel (very nice!!).  Most importantly, Active Directory executables and scripts that were previously used, which I’ll admit created significant challenges on customer engagements, have been replaced with all PowerShell commands. While I haven’t done a significant amount of testing with this, I can say that on a native Windows Server 2012 controller, launcher, and Active Directory domain controller, the PowerShell scripts worked flawlessly right out of the box.

In this blog post, I will show a couple Sneak Peek screenshots of initial setup, configuration, and a test run for readers consumption. But first, I’ve extracted some details from the documentation that highlight “What’s New in v4”:

The new Login VSI version 4 dramatically improves ease of installation, test creation and test
management, and offers unparalleled production level realism in workload patterns, datasets and test
execution.

 

Login VSI v4 is almost a complete re-write of Login VSI 3.x. For Login VSI v4 four major design goals
were set:

 

Dramatically reduce and streamline installation footprint of VSI. Login VSI v4 is now much
easier to install and integrate: in both lab and production environments.

• The test image footprint of Login VSI has been reduced by almost 90%. This makes
  the tool not only easier to install, but also easier to integrate and deploy.
• Centralization of management, updates and logging makes the use of Login VSI more
  efficient than ever.
• Direct Desktop Launch (DDL) mode enables large-scale testing with minimal
  infrastructure.

Further simplify test configuration and customization: benchmarking and load testing of
VDI and SBC environments was never so easy and accessible.

• The test image footprint of Login VSI has been reduced by almost 90%. This makes
  the tool not only easier to install, but also easier to integrate and deploy.
• Centralization of management, updates and logging makes the use of Login VSI more
  efficient than ever.
• Direct Desktop Launch (DDL) mode enables large-scale testing with minimal
  infrastructure.

Substantially increase test realism: no ‘synthetic’ VDI and SBC performance benchmark was
ever so ‘realistic’.

• The duration of the standard workloads has been increased from 14 to 48 minutes
  loops. Also the way in which segments and applications start has been improved to
  better reflect real world user behavior.
• The datasets used in the workloads now offer 1000 different documents per type,
  more and larger websites, and a video library in every format, all to ensure a real world
  variety in data usage.
• The execution of the workloads is improved through the introduction of phasing,
  allowing for real world production user scenarios.

Significantly improve test insights: Login VSI v4 will give you new insights which will help
you truly optimize performance, increase stability, and ultimately save you a lot of money by
finding bottlenecks before your users do.

• The new dashboard offers real-time test feedback, including progress, launched and
  active sessions, elapsed time and time left of the test in progress.
• The industry standard index VSImax has been further refined, enriching scalability
  results (max number of users), with objective baseline performance results
  (independent of tested load).
• Automated reporting with out of the box report ready graphs for all used settings,
  response times, and other data enhances the level, and choice, of information
  generated by the Login VSI analyser.

Now that we’ve covered What’s New, allow me to provide some Sneak Peek screenshots into the initial setup of LoginVSI v4. Before getting started, create a simple Windows folder and file share on the controller.  Then, launch the initial Setup.exe and click Next:

Select the file share from the drop-down and click Next:

Click Finish:

Click Save:

License files will be read from the Configuration folder, just as in previous versions:

Click AD Setup to get started:

Enter AD information including usernames and passwords to generate.  Then, click Save to PS1 to copy/paste this PowerShell script to a Domain Controller.  I tested this on Windows Server 2012 AD and it worked flawlessly.

Copy the entire script to the clipboard:

Run the PowerShell script from a Domain Controller:

Next, click Infrastructure to configure the launchers:

Click Next:

Select Single Machine and click Next:

Enter the launcher name, capacity and click Next:

Click Finish:

Review the list of launchers:

Select Workload and choose the Microsoft Office version that you intend to use for the benchmark:

Select test setup and choose an appropriate Workload.  Create a new phase or modify an existing phase to change the desired parameters:

Select Connection and click Start connection wizard:

Click Next:

Select the appropriate connection type (Check out all the new built-in options!!):

Enter connection settings (RDP address, etc.) and click Next:

Enter appropriate display settings:

Select resource mappings if desired:

Select the desired connection experience for the RDP session:

Enter RD Gateway details if applicable:

Review the command line parameters that are all built automatically in this version!

Review the connection configuration:

Click Start test when you’re ready to initialize the workload! (We’ll come back to this after we’ve installed the Target portion):

Same prerequisites still apply as before.  Prepare a Windows client or server with a default installation of Microsoft Office and .NET Framework 3.5 or later (Don’t use transform files!!).  Then, execute the Target Setup:

Click Next:

Enter the UNC path to the LoginVSI share you created and click Next:

The remainder of the installation completes automatically.  Let’s go back and kick off the workload!  Click Start Test to go!  Click Next:

Click Logoff and click Next:

Enter a test name and click Next:

Click Next:

Click Next:

Ensure the session monitor is running (LoginVSI\_VSI_Binaries\Launcher\SessionMonitor.exe) and click Next:

Ensure the agent is running (LoginVSI\_VSI_Binaries\Launcher\Agent.exe) and click Next:

Click Finish!

Review that the test started properly. You may notice this dashboard is greatly improved from previous versions!  Very sleek, very nice.  Love it!

Below I have included a couple YouTube videos of the user profile preparing (first time run) along with a minute snipit of the Heavy workload.

I hope this has been very informative for you, and has wet your appetite to get your hands on Login VSI v4 when it releases!

If you have any questions, comments, or just want to leave feedback, please do so below. Thanks for reading!

–youngtech