Why Citrix xendesktop non-persistent VDI devices are not appearing in All Inventory

[sasikumar_r]

Hi All,

We have a Citrix Xendesktop connection in place and it works fine, we are able to see information on the Virtual desktop templates page perfectly.

There are around 80+ Non persistent VDI machines(Windows server) in the citrix Xendesktop environment, all these 80 servers are appearing as VDI devices on the FNMS Virtual Desktop Templates page.

To capture these 80 devices in All Inventory, we installed Agents on all these 80 VDI devices(even tried Agentless rule) with no luck, Agents collected the inventory and uploaded the ndi files successfully. inventory got imported into inventory database as well but they got ignored when inventory import job tries to import into compliance DB. Due to this we are not able to see these 80 devices in All Inventory. Inventory import log has below 2 lines,

2020-04-10 12:15:38,738 [INFO ] WriteComputers - Remove XenDesktop VDI devices that are known to be non-persistent
2020-04-10 12:15:38,832 [INFO ] Prevented 82 non-persistent VDI devices from being created

I hope there should be some technical reason for preventing these non persistent VDI devices from being created(to make it visible in All Inventory grid). Could some one please explain why non persistent VDI devices are getting prevented from getting created in compliancecomputer.

Thank you
Sasi

[mrichardson]

This is by design, for non-persistent VDIs, please check under Discovery & Inventory - Remote Devices.

The reason for this behaviour is that non-persistent VDIs are being regularly destroyed / re-created and so including them under All Inventory could cause confusion in thinking these are active devices  contributing towards your active device count when they could already have been removed before the import completes. 

The normal mechanism for getting these in the system is to ensure the gold image is inventoried and then once the VDI template is imported it will populate Remote Devices with each of these; this is true even if you don't install the agent on these.

Persistent VDIs are treated more along the lines of a VM so should have an agent installed on them.

There have been a few conversations I've been involved in recently looking at this behaviour so it is under review and I'd be interested to hear thoughts and feedback on whether the non-persistent VDIs should be included in All Inventory despite the risk that it would mean you're looking at a device which may no longer exist.

[sasikumar_r]

Hi @mrichardson ,

Thank you for your inputs!

Currently we have 80+ non-persistent devices running which are running on Windows server operating system.

Since we cannot bring these non persistent VDI devices in All Inventory, how can we calculate the Windows server licenses for these devices. Do we have any idea on how to bring them into Windows server license consumption? 

Thank you

Sasi

[mrichardson · Accepted solution]

Most Citrix licensing is User based so check the user and make sure they are a Calculated or Assigned user for a device and then have either User or Named User licensing available to cover Windows Server and that should allow you to license those.

This is an important consideration as these VDIs are not actual "devices" in the typical sense as you don't have true inventory for them, all you know for certain is the actual User account which accessed these VDIs and that is why we put the focus into recognising the user account and then license based on the user.

Does this help?