Contents

Ex 11 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Working with Experience

Exercise Overview:

Working with Experience

In this lab we will learn how to configure and use Experience. In Experience we think about 3 personas, they are:

End User Computing Manager
Level 3 Helpdesk Analyst – An Escalation Engineer typically working on wide spread issues and proactive maintenance
Level 1/Level 2 Helpdesk

Configuring Tachyon for Experience

This exercise will show you how to configure Tachyon to use Experience. 

Confirm Permissions to use Experience

During the install Lab we assigned a number of roles to different users, in this section we will add the additional role for Experience.

Due to the set up of users in these lab additional roles have been given to our users. you will need to think about what you want your users to be able to do. The roles we are talking about are:

A user who only needs to view Experience so should be assigned (Possibly End User Computing Manager):-
Experience Viewer role

A user who needs to be able to explore devices and issue questions and actions to resolve issues should be assigned (Possibly Level 3 Helpdesk Analyst):-
Experience Viewer
Global Actioner
Global Viewer

A user who needs to be able to explore devices and issue questions to find issues should be assigned (Possibly Level 1/Level 2 Helpdesk):
Experience Viewer
Global Viewer

1ETRNAP
  1. Navigate to Settings – Permissions – Roles.
  2. Click on Experience Viewers then the Members tab
  3. Add the users: Manager1 and the group: Tachyon_Admins (if you do not remember how, you did this in Exercise 3 step 26)

Verify the Installation

In this section we will verify that Experience has successfully installed

1ETRNAP
  1. Open Explorer and navigate to C:\ProgramData\1E\Tachyon

Open Tachyon.Experience.log and note the lines:
Starting experience Server
Processing database 'TachyonExperience'
Cube processing complete

It is possible to increase the frequency with which the Coordinator initiates cube processing by modifying %programfiles%\1E\Tachyon\Coordinator\Tachyon.Server.Coordinator.exe.config to reduce the value and restarting the Tachyon Coordinator service:
<add key="ExperienceCubeProcessingIntervalMinutes" value="10" />

In our lab environment, we will change this value to 10 minutes, the default is 1440 and we do not want to wait a full day for the updates

  1. Open Explorer and navigate to C:\Program Files\1E\Tachyon\Coordinator and open Tachyon.Server.Coordinator.exe.config search for ExperienceCubeProcessingIntervalMinutes and set the Value to 10
  2. Open the Services Applet and restart the 1E Tachyon Coordinator service

Deploy Policies

In order for the clients to report back to Experience, they need to have policies deployed to the environment. 

These are the steps you would need to take in your environment if you are not implementing or using Guaranteed State, we have implemented Guaranteed State so you do not need to carry out these steps (However it will not matter if you do)
1ETRNW72
  1. Still logged into 1ETRNW72 as 1ETRN\Manager1
  2. Open the Tachyon Portal and Launch Guaranteed State
  3. Navigate to Administration – Policies.
  4. Click Deploy

Confirm that Experience has Populated

1ETRNAP
    As part of the installation of Experience a new Cube is created and is used to populate the Experience Data.
  1. From Start open SQL Server 2014 Management Studio, and connect to Analysis Services
  2. Expand Databases and confirm TachyonExperience is listed


1ETRNW101
  1. Log as User
  2. Open the Tachyon Portal in Chrome (if not already open)
  3. Click Switch App and choose Experience
  4. The page should open on Overview if it has not navigate there
  5. Confirm that data is displayed, we will look at the data and options shortly.
If data is not displayed then carry out the Generate Experience Data section below. BUT only if Data is not displayed (If you are not doing this section on day one of the Lab then data should be shown)

Generate Experience Data

The following steps are not required in a production environment, the data will generate and populate Experience automatically, however the data is bundled and reported back once per day just after midnight, that is not practical for us in the Lab Environment so we will force the update to suit us. This should not be done in a Production Environment, as it would cause duplicated data.


1ETRNAP
  1. Launch the SkyTap Shared Drive shortcut from the desktop and navigate to 1E Tachyon - Course Content\Tachyon 5.0 Course Content\ download and copy 1ETRN-GeneratePerfData.xml to c:\temp
  2. In the Tachyon Portal navigate to Settings – Instructions – Instruction Sets
  3. Click on Upload in the upper right
  4. In the Open dialog box select C:\Temp\1ETRN-GeneratePerfData.xml click Open
  5. Click Add new set on the right to create a New Instruction Set
  6. In the Name field type in 1E-PerformanceGeneration click Add
  7. Click on the Unassigned instruction set – Select all the instruction that you just imported and click move in the far right. Select 1E-PerformanceGeneration in the move instructions popup.
  8. Click Move
    9. 1ETRNW71
  9. You should still be logged in as 1ETRN\Tachyon_Admin1
  10. Launch the Tachyon Portal if it is not already open, with Google Chrome. If the Portal is already opened – click on Switch app at the bottom and select Explorer
  11. Click on All Instructions. It will now display the Instruction Sets which we added to Tachyon, and the associated questions and actions.
  12. Select 1E-PerformanceGeneration and choose the GeneratePerfData instruction
  13. Click the Ask this question button
  14. Ensure all 7 machines are reporting inventory back
    15. Remember these steps are not required in a production environment, and is only included here to facilitate the course

The Experience screens

Here we will look at each of the Experience screens in detail

Overview Screen

The Overview screen has a number of rows displaying data we will look at each in turn

Overview Screen - Filter Row

The Filters allow us to drill down into segments of our estate

Look at the top row of the screen, which looks like the image to the right

This row allows us to filter on a variety of options, first we can see that Applicable Devices is showing 100%, this field does not allow filtering

Next is Operating System (OS), in our environment we have 3 different OS, Windows 7, Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10 Version 1709. If we had more versions we would have one bar per version

  1. Float the mouse over each OS, this will show the number of devices for each OS

  1. Click on the Windows 10 OS and observe that the Rows below change to display the results filtered by the selection as shown on the right
    2. Note the top row filter has also changed to only show the information relating to the Windows 10 devices.
    We will look at what the second row information means later. The data in your lab may differ as this is current performance
  2. Remove the OS filter by clicking the x next to Windows 10 Enterprise 1709

    As time progresses the data displayed in each of the tiles will change as Experience updates. Please remember this as you are unlikely to see exactly the same results as shown in the screen shots, but it should be similar enough for you to get a feel for each tile and what is being demonstrated
  1. Click on Device Model and see the filter apply, The display does not change as we only have 1 device model in this environment
  2. Remove the filter
  3. In Criticality select the Critical bar, observe the data change and note these are our servers, we defined the Criticality of the devices in a previous exercise.
  4. Remove the filter
  5. Click on Location and see the filter apply, the data returned will be filtered by the locations we defined earlier
  6. Remove the filter
  7. In Management Group select the All Win 10 Lab devices, observe the data change, we defined the Management Groups of the devices in a previous exercise.
  8. Do not remove the filter

Overview Screen - Filtered Data

When a filter has been selected the second and third rows change their displays here we will look at that data 

With the All Win 10 Lab devices Management Group selected the remaining rows will look like the screen on the right

The Experience - Latest Score shows that the two machines in the Management Group are in a good state.

In a production environment with thousands of machines, it is unlikely that the Very Good or Good machines would need deeper investigation, and your BAU/Support teams would be more likely to investigate any Very Poor or Poor results before looking at the better performing machines.

In the lab environment the Windows 10 machines have the lowest score


Categories Screen

Here we will look at the data available from the Categories screen

  1. On the left is the Experience - Latest Score click on this, and the Categories screen is displayed
    2. On the far left the Categories Screen is now selected, and the Filters shows 1 filter applied
    Each of the tiles (Stability, Responsiveness and Performance) if clicked will take you to the respective page. We will do this one at a time

Stability in the displayed example is showing as Very good, and has a count of 2 next to it, so both devices are in a good state

Responsiveness is showing as Average for both machines

Finally Performance is showing as Good

  1. But click on the Stability Tile (We will look at the data behind all the tiles, as we progress, at this stage we are looking at the data on each screen in turn)

Stability Screen

Here we will look at the data available from the Stability screen

    Selecting Stability has moved us to the Stability page

    The screen on the right is now displayed and we have moved to the Stability screen as selected in the left hand menu

  1. On the right of Stability - Latest Score is a comparison list which will show how the selected group has performed over different periods of time, review each but there will be very limited data in this environment

Float over each of the bars in the four graphs and you see the date and the score for each of:
Operating System: Crashes - Trend
Operating System: Service Failures - Trend
Software: Crashes - Trend
Software: Hangs - Trend

Because of the limited data, the environment generally looks to be behaving well, however in my example Software: Crashes - Trend is the worst performing area and we will look deeper into this

  1. In the top bar of Software: Crashes - Trend float over the title and a series of chart options are displayed, these change the view of the data displayed
    2. The options just mentioned are available on all the tiles on any screen. We will now look at what each displays
  2. In the Software: Crashes - Trend Click on the left most option Latest score this will display a tile
    3. Again note the vertical Compared to data, where at the bottom you are shown the change over the last seven days

  1. In the Software: Crashes - Latest Score Click on the second left option Latest grading will display the tile as shown to the right, in this example one is Very Good and one Very Poor
    2. As in all the charts we have so far looked at it is possible to to drill into the data in each chart, we will look at this in more detail shortly, in production the machine with a Very Poor scoring would need to be investigated



  1. In the Software: Crashes - Latest Grading Click on the forth left option View Poorest Devices will display the tile as shown to the right, in this example one is Very Good and one Very Poor
    2. Here we see a listing of the machines, and we can see that 1ETRNW101 has a score of zero


  1. In the Software: Crashes - Poorest Devices Click on the second right option View Detailed Data will display the pop up
    2. Here we see a listing of the machines, and we can see that 1ETRNW101 has a score of zero, and each machine is a link to more data, We will look at that shortly

At the top of the screen is an option to add additional Metrics Click on this and observe the options, metrics can be added or removed by selecting the metric and clicking the appropriate arrow to move it in or out of the display. Add and remove some metrics to see how the data displayed changes. Metrics can be changed on all subsequent screens look at the options on the upcoming screens

Responsiveness Screen

Here we will look at the data available from the Responsiveness screen

  1. Navigate back to the Categories Screen, either by using the back button or by directly clicking Categories in the left menu
    2. Note which ever way you return to it the filter for the All Win 10 Lab devices Management Group is still applied
  2. Now click on Responsiveness - Latest Score from the middle tile

    The Responsiveness screen will be displayed, and is as shown on the right
  1. Return to the Categories screen, by your preferred method
  2. Now click on the Responsiveness option in the left menu, and confirm the display is the same

  1. Click on the Responsiveness - Latest Score tile, the display changes to that shown on the right

    2. On this screen we can see tiles for the Score, Grading, Poorest Devices and graphs over time of Responsiveness, Experience and Software Crash.

    Click any of the tiles, links or graph data will take us to the Devices screen, we will look at that shortly

  2. Select the Performance screen from the left Menu

Performance Screen

Here we will look at the data available from the Performance screen

    The Performance screen will look like the one to the right
  1. Click on each of the tiles to see the data returned, each gives a view of the specific results for that element



As with the other screens, the tiles have the options to change the view, you should familiarize yourself with how this changes the data displayed

Devices Screen

Here we will look at the data available from the Devices screen

  1. Click on Devices from the left menu, and the screen opens, and remains filtered by previously selected All Win 10 Lab devices Management Group

    2. On this screen all the machines in the Management Group are displayed, with information on:

    FQDN (which is a link)
    Last Reported (with number of days since last reporting)
    Experience (with the score)
    Stability (with the score)
    Performance (with the score)
    Responsiveness (with the score)

  1. Click on the link under 1ETRNW101, and the Details screen to the right is displayed
    2. There is a lot of information displayed here, on the left of the screen is the machine detail, OS, System, Activity, Certificate, Coverage Tags and Management Groups. And on the right the different elements we have seen on each of the pages, an overall score for Experience and Performance, Stability and Responsiveness, with sub categories for each of the elements making up the score

  1. Each of the Elements has a bar showing the individual score and these are links to more details, in this example Processor: Queue length has a score of 0, Click on the link, and the Trends screen is shown
    2. On this screen we see the how this machine has performed over time and are able to build a picture of whether it is improving or deteriorating
    There are two other tabs and we will look at those now

  1. Click on the Logs Tab and look at the results returned, an example is on the right
    2. Here we can see that the only Event is a Software Crash, for WmiApSrv.exe, it is possible in a production environment that there will be other events listed, and your environment may differ from these results

  1. Click on the Software Tab and look at the results returned, an example is on the right
    2. Each of the fields can be sorted, and by doing this it is possible to drill down to find which products are causing problems on the machine, and then take any action required to resolve

Software Screen

Here we will look at the data available from the Software screen

  1. Click on the Software Tab and look at the results returned, an example is on the right
    2. This screen is quite similar to that in the Devices - Software tab, but has slightly fewer columns, you may wish to compare the two
  2. Sort the Crashes column descending and view the Product that has the most crashes
    3. Each of the fields can be sorted, and by doing this it is possible to drill down to find which products are causing problems on the machine, and then take any action required to resolve.

Creating Favourites

Create Favourites

Favourites can be created to provide a quick means of accessing frequently used filters to generate useful reports, here we will look at how to create these

Earlier we saw that the machines in the All Win 10 Lab devices Management Group had the lowest score, so that we can easily monitor these High Criticality machines we will create a favourite to quickly see the information relating to their performance
  1. Navigate to the Overview screen, and if not already filtered on the All Win 10 Lab devices Management Group do this (refer to step 20)
  2. Click on Experience - Latest Score
  3. Click on Responsiveness - Latest Score

    This will show the Responsiveness screen filtered to the All Win 10 Lab devices Management group

  1. Now Click on the button located to the far right of the Responsiveness text

  2. This will open the Presets screen, enter Windows 10 Responsiveness as the Name, and click Save
  3. The Window closes, confirm Windows 10 Responsiveness is now saved under the Responsiveness text

  1. Close and Reopen the Tachyon Portal
  2. Once open Click on Experience
  3. Navigate to Responsiveness and confirm no filters are applied, if any are remove them
  4. Click on Windows 10 Responsiveness, and see the pre saved filter is now applied

Working with Experience

As mentioned at the beginning we have 3 Personas in play within Experience in the following tasks we will take a look at how each of these may use Experience

Using Experience as the End User Computing Manager

In this use case the End User Computing Manager, logs on in the morning and is going to look at the performance of the devices on the estate, as we recently deployed some new software and she wants to see what if any effect this is having

1ETRNW72
  1. Log on as Manager1 and open the Tachyon Portal (if not already open)
  2. Once open Click on Experience, and on the overview page, on the Experience - Latest Grading tile Click on the machines reporting as Good (in our environment, we do have limited data, so the majority of our devices are good or better)
  3. From here click on the Performance - Latest Grading tile on the machines reporting as Good

    On the Performance Page all looks Very Good, but the previous tab showed only Good, we will add some additional metrics to see what the issue could be
  1. Click on to Select Metrics, and from the displayed screen move, Disk (system): Average seconds per write Score and Memory: Page file usage - Latest Score to the Visible metrics by clicking the right arrow as highlighted. Click Save once moved.

  1. Choose to view poorest devices in the Disk (system): Average seconds per write Score tile (by clicking on the icon in the title bar) then Click on the device with the Poorest Score
    2. The End User Computing Manager can drill out to an individual machine if desired or get an overview of how the estate is behaving, and is able to direct the support teams to resolve the issues
    This could now be added as a favourite as in the earlier section so it can be returned to at will

Using Experience as Level 1/2 Operators

In the upcoming tasks we will look at two of the actions a Level 1/2 operator may be called on to carry out

Identify failing software

In this use case the Level 1/2 user will access Experience and carry out troubleshooting on the estate so that all is running and the End User Computing Manager sees all working at good or above

1ETRNW101
  1. Log on as User and open the Tachyon Portal (if not already open)
  2. Once open Click on Experience, and on the Responsiveness page, hover over the Windows Internals tile and select the View Poorest Devices option (we looked at this earlier)
    3. The scores are made up of Windows Internal metrics which measure your typical items – registry, OS, processes, threads etc
  3. Click on the worst performing machine, this displays the details relating to the selected machine, we looked at this in step 59
    4. Details lists all the metrics that are collected (around 48) and the values that are assigned
    Trends shows crashes and hangs as well as install events and a few other metrics (this may be blank in the environment)
    Event logs is a dump of the event log to be able to see information to troubleshoot the issue
    Software tab shows all the software installed on the device
  4. Click on the Software tab and sort the software by Crashes desc
  5. There has been a recently installed application on the machine, called badapp.exe which keeps crashing, log onto the machine and uninstall it, once uninstalled lets see if the machine performance improves
  6. Once uninstalled return to the Responsiveness tab and review if the machine has resolved its performance issues
    7. In this task you acted as a L1/L2 user, and identified a poorly performing machine, drilled down, observed the cause as being a software issue and rectified it.
Identify and rectify a reported issue by a user

In this use case we will look at a scenario where a user calls in and reports an issue with a specific machine

This is a standard Level 1/2 situation a User calls in and reports having an issue with their machine 1ETRNW73, As the helpdesk operator we get the symptoms and the machine name from the caller, we would raise an incident. In this case we will try an perform a first time fix on the machine
1ETRNW71
  1. Log on as TachyonAdmin1 and open the Tachyon Portal (if not already open)
  2. Once open Click on Experience, and open the Devices page, and click on the link for 1ETRNW73
  3. This opens the Details for that device, look at the right hand side of the screen and Click on the Software Tab, note that Chrome has a large Virtual Memory Usage count
  4. Click on the Explore button at the top of the screen, this opens the Explorer window, Type into the I want to know box Processes, and choose kill process, select the action kill process(es) with image name matching, and enter Chrome.exe
  5. Note the approximate target, (it is the one device we are looking at) then click perform this action, and follow the authentication process
  6. When results are returned, note the process using the most CPU, and click on the Actions Tab, enter kill process, select the action kill process(es) with image name matching, and enter the process just noted, then click perform this action, and follow the authentication process
  7. Wait for results to be returned from the action and confirm that Chrome has been killed
    8. At this point the L1/L2 user can check that the issue has been resolved and close the call as a First Time Fix (depending on the speed of the approval process in a production environment)

Using Experience as L3 User 

In this use case we will look at a scenario where a L3 User carries out proactive maintenance to keep the estate running efficiently

This is a standard Level 3 situation the more skilled engineers are tasked with carrying out proactive actions to ensure the smooth running of the estate. The engineer will look for software crashes and look to rectify the situation
1ETRNW101
  1. Log on as User and open the Tachyon Portal (if not already open)
  2. Once open Click on Experience, and open the Software page, Sort the Crashes column descending to find the software which crashes the most
  3. Click on Microsoft® Windows® Operating System - wmiapsrv.exe - 10.0.14393.0, and note that the servers are showing the most crashes
    4. A possible cause of software crashes is the software not being up to date with patches, from the console this user can investigate the patch status for OS updates, and as we saw earlier in patch success deploy any missing patches, or identify any failed patches. And from the information look to resolve the cause of the failure and then patch the machines.

    If the software were an actual application rather than the OS we could check if patches or later versions had been released and highlight to management the need to look at updating or patching this software

In this Exercise you have seen the screens available within Experience, you have filtered data and seen how the view can be changed using the options available, and created a favourite to quickly show important data. Because of the nature of Experience and its almost real time updating, the examples used in this guide may not exactly match what you see in your environment. You should now spend some time to drill down to any of the very granular detail from any tile you noticed or are interested in this is a good time for you to spend exploring Experience

Lab Summary

In this lab we looked at the Experience Application. We looked at the status of our environment and drilled down to granular information relating to Stability, Responsiveness, Performance, Devices and Software. You have seen how Experience has enabled a very deep dive into lots of aspects of your environment that you can then take remedial action on, possibly by the use of Tachyon instructions or software adaptations.