Contents
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Introducing Tachyon
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Quick Start
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Implementing Tachyon
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Using Settings
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Using Explorer
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Using Guaranteed State
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Using Inventory
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Using Experience
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Using Patch Success
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Troubleshooting
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Extending Tachyon
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Training
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Tachyon Operator v5.0 Lab Guide
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Ex 1 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Installing and Configuring Tachyon Prerequisites
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Ex 2 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Installing Tachyon
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Ex 3 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Exploring the Settings Application
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Ex 4 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Instruction Sets and Management Groups
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Ex 5 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Working with Instructions
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Ex 6 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Working with Patch Success
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Ex 7 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Working with Inventory
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Ex 8 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Using Guaranteed State
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Ex 9 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Microsoft Configuration Manager Integration
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Ex 10 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Creating Instructions and Fragments Using TIMS
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Ex 11 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Working with Experience
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Ex 1 - TCN Opr v5.0 - Installing and Configuring Tachyon Prerequisites
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Tachyon Advanced v5.0 Lab Guide
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Tachyon - Nomad as Content Provider Lab Guide
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Tachyon Operator v5.0 Lab Guide
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Reference
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
- Navigate to Settings – Permissions – Roles.
- Click on Experience Viewers then the Members tab
- 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
- Open Explorer and navigate to C:\ProgramData\1E\Tachyon
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
- 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
- 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.
- Still logged into 1ETRNW72 as 1ETRN\Manager1
- Open the Tachyon Portal and Launch Guaranteed State
- Navigate to Administration – Policies.
- Click Deploy
Confirm that Experience has Populated
- From Start open SQL Server 2014 Management Studio, and connect to Analysis Services
- Expand Databases and confirm TachyonExperience is listed
- Log as User
- Open the Tachyon Portal in Chrome (if not already open)
- Click Switch App and choose Experience
- The page should open on Overview if it has not navigate there
- Confirm that data is displayed, we will look at the data and options shortly.
Generate Experience Data
- 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
- In the Tachyon Portal navigate to Settings – Instructions – Instruction Sets
- Click on Upload in the upper right
- In the Open dialog box select C:\Temp\1ETRN-GeneratePerfData.xml click Open
- Click Add new set on the right to create a New Instruction Set
- In the Name field type in 1E-PerformanceGeneration click Add
- 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.
- Click Move
- You should still be logged in as 1ETRN\Tachyon_Admin1
- 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
- Click on All Instructions. It will now display the Instruction Sets which we added to Tachyon, and the associated questions and actions.
- Select 1E-PerformanceGeneration and choose the GeneratePerfData instruction
- Click the Ask this question button
- Ensure all 7 machines are reporting inventory back
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
- Float the mouse over each OS, this will show the number of devices for each OS
- 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
- Remove the OS filter by clicking the x next to Windows 10 Enterprise 1709
We will look at what the second row information means later. The data in your lab may differ as this is current performance
- Click on Device Model and see the filter apply, The display does not change as we only have 1 device model in this environment
- Remove the filter
- 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.
- Remove the filter
- Click on Location and see the filter apply, the data returned will be filtered by the locations we defined earlier
- Remove the filter
- 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.
- 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
- On the left is the Experience - Latest Score click on this, and the Categories screen is displayed
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
- 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
- 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
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
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
- 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
- In the Software: Crashes - Trend Click on the left most option Latest score this will display a tile
- 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
- 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
- In the Software: Crashes - Poorest Devices Click on the second right option View Detailed Data will display the pop up
Responsiveness Screen
Here we will look at the data available from the Responsiveness screen
- Navigate back to the Categories Screen, either by using the back button or by directly clicking Categories in the left menu
- Now click on Responsiveness - Latest Score from the middle tile
- Return to the Categories screen, by your preferred method
- Now click on the Responsiveness option in the left menu, and confirm the display is the same
- Click on the Responsiveness - Latest Score tile, the display changes to that shown on the right
- Select the Performance screen from the left Menu
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
Performance Screen
Here we will look at the data available from the Performance screen
- Click on each of the tiles to see the data returned, each gives a view of the specific results for that element
Devices Screen
Here we will look at the data available from the Devices screen
- Click on Devices from the left menu, and the screen opens, and remains filtered by previously selected All Win 10 Lab devices Management Group
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)
- Click on the link under 1ETRNW101, and the Details screen to the right is displayed
- 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
There are two other tabs and we will look at those now
- Click on the Logs Tab and look at the results returned, an example is on the right
- Click on the Software Tab and look at the results returned, an example is on the right
Software Screen
Here we will look at the data available from the Software screen
- Click on the Software Tab and look at the results returned, an example is on the right
- Sort the Crashes column descending and view the Product that has the most crashes
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
- 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)
- Click on Experience - Latest Score
- Click on Responsiveness - Latest Score
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Now Click on the
button located to the far right of the Responsiveness text - This will open the Presets screen, enter Windows 10 Responsiveness as the Name, and click Save
- The Window closes, confirm Windows 10 Responsiveness is now saved under the Responsiveness text
- Close and Reopen the Tachyon Portal
- Once open Click on Experience
- Navigate to Responsiveness and confirm no filters are applied, if any are remove them
- 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
- Log on as Manager1 and open the Tachyon Portal (if not already open)
- 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)
- From here click on the Performance - Latest Grading tile on the machines reporting as Good
- 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.
- 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
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
- Log on as User and open the Tachyon Portal (if not already open)
- 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)
- Click on the worst performing machine, this displays the details relating to the selected machine, we looked at this in step 59
- Click on the Software tab and sort the software by Crashes desc
- 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
- Once uninstalled return to the Responsiveness tab and review if the machine has resolved its performance issues
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
In this use case we will look at a scenario where a user calls in and reports an issue with a specific machine
- Log on as TachyonAdmin1 and open the Tachyon Portal (if not already open)
- Once open Click on Experience, and open the Devices page, and click on the link for 1ETRNW73
- 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
- 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
- Note the approximate target, (it is the one device we are looking at) then click perform this action, and follow the authentication process
- 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
- Wait for results to be returned from the action and confirm that Chrome has been killed
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
- Log on as User and open the Tachyon Portal (if not already open)
- Once open Click on Experience, and open the Software page, Sort the Crashes column descending to find the software which crashes the most
- Click on Microsoft® Windows® Operating System - wmiapsrv.exe - 10.0.14393.0, and note that the servers are showing the most crashes
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
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.