Windows Virtual Desktop Health Check - New statuses for Get-RDSSessionHost

Microsoft

Windows Virtual Desktop service is rolling out changes which introduce new set of health checks for Session Host in production. These health checks determine if the Session Host is in the state where it can accept connections and highlights cases which need  administrator intervention.

Below are the statuses and what each of them should be interpreted as:

 

  • Available: Session Host has passed all the health checks and is available to handle connections
  • Unavailable: Session Host is either turned off or has failed critical health checks which is causing service not to be able to route connections to this session host. E.g. session host is not joined to the domain, failures in installing critical components like initial versions of agents, stack etc. Note this replaces previous “NoHeartBeat” status.
  • NeedsAssistance: Session Host has passed health checks which allow connectivity but failed other important health checks which limit the service functionality. E.g. required WVD URL’s are not accessible from the session host which puts the session host in an unsupported state.

Impact: Customers who have previously built reporting or tools based on Get-RDSSessionHost status would need to update their tools to reflect new statuses. 

 

Windows Virtual Desktop Scaling tool  has been updated take these statuses into consideration. You can find instructions in post here on how to update your scaling tool to latest version which contains these changes.

 

Eg: Available state

 SessionHostName    : ABC
TenantName         : ABCXYZ
TenantGroupName    : Default Tenant Group
HostPoolName       : ABCDEF
AllowNewSession    : False
Sessions           : 0
LastHeartBeat      : 4/19/2020 7:55:12 AM
AgentVersion       : 1.0.1932.3500
AssignedUser       : 
OsVersion          : 10.0.18363
SxSStackVersion    : rdp-sxs200326004
Status             : Available
UpdateState        : Succeeded
LastUpdateTime     : 4/19/2020 7:40:35 AM
UpdateErrorMessage : 

 

Eg: Unavailable state

 SessionHostName    : ABC
TenantName         : ABCXYZ
TenantGroupName    : Default Tenant Group
HostPoolName       : ABCDEF
AllowNewSession    : False
Sessions           : 0
LastHeartBeat      : 4/13/2020 11:26:22 PM
AgentVersion       : 1.0.1800.1300
AssignedUser       : 
OsVersion          : 10.0.18363
SxSStackVersion    : rdp-sxs200326004
Status             : Unavailable
UpdateState        : Succeeded
LastUpdateTime     : 4/13/2020 7:01:08 PM
UpdateErrorMessage :

 

Eg: Needs Assistance

SessionHostName    : ABC

TenantName         : ABCXYZ

TenantGroupName    : Default Tenant Group

HostPoolName       : ABCDEF

AllowNewSession    : True

Sessions           : 8

LastHeartBeat      : 4/17/2020 7:55:12 AM

AgentVersion       : 1.0.1932.3500

AssignedUser       :

OsVersion          : 10.0.18363

SxSStackVersion    : rdp-sxs200326004

Status             : NeedsAssistance

UpdateState        : Succeeded

LastUpdateTime     : 4/13/2020 9:25:57 PM

UpdateErrorMessage :

 

9 Replies
Thank you for this. We were needing exactly these kinds of metrics.
Will autoscaling be configurable in the blade? Guessing we still need to use the LogicApp automation for now?

FYI the auto scale URL is currently down, has been since yesterday

@Nagorg-Terralogic Logic App doesn't work with Preview of ARM model yet. We plan to make it work with ARM model in coming weeks. We are also looking to bring overall scaling service integrated into portal experience by end of year.

Hi! In my team we are trying at the moment to achieve automatic scaling WVD, using LogicApp, is there better approach? Can you point better way for now?
We are doing a lot of tests now.

@Roop_Kiran_Chevuri 

 

Is there any option in future for Auto-scaling within the Azure portal. When the given Session limit is 75% then the next available Session Host server in the HOST pool starts automatically and make the Session host True.

Hi @mayur_nalawade ,

 

it´s already possible with the new ARM based version.

I´ve documented it in detail how it works. Please check out my two part blog series about WVD automation.

https://wvdlogix.net/windows-virtual-desktop-host-pool-automation

https://wvdlogix.net/windows-virtual-desktop-host-pool-automation-2

 

Feel free to reach out to me for questions!

Cheers,

Patrick

@patrickkoehler ,

Thank you for the update and for the documents. I will try this and revert :)