Teams Call Monitoring for Every VDI Setup: Gaining Visibility with TrueDEM

Many organizations rely on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to provide a flexible work environment for their end-users. Running Microsoft Teams calls within a VDI session, however, requires specific configurations to ensure optimal performance.
Crucial to this are the Microsoft Teams optimization settings supported by the VDI vendor. Currently, two main types of optimization are available:

If you are interested in learning more about the technical aspects or configuration processes for VDI optimizations, I would recommend reviewing MVP Jon Towles’ article on “Teams on a Diet: SlimCore Optimizes Microsoft Teams on VDI” or to check vendor documentation. In this blog, I will not focus on how to set it up, instead, I will focus on the challenges IT administrators face when monitoring and troubleshooting Teams call issues in this complex landscape, and how TrueDEM can help provide the necessary visibility.

The first aspect to assess is whether VDI optimization is even enabled as not enabling it will significantly increase the potential for issues with Teams.
This can be checked in two ways:
User Visibility: If optimization is not active, the user will see a “Not optimized“ message in the Teams title bar. While visible, the true impact often only becomes apparent once a call is initiated.

Administrator Visibility: Administrators can only verify if VDI Optimization is on by going to the  Settings / About Teams in the client, or by checking the vdi_debug.log.

The limited options for administrators to verify this do make it something that is hard to keep track of. Especially as settings can get changed due to updates for example. So careful testing and regular monitoring are required.

Monitoring Teams Calling performance in a VDI environment differs significantly from the standard configuration where users access the Cloud directly from their devices. I often refer to this as “The Monitoring Triangle”.
It depicts the special relationship between the involved data streams and how they are routed between the VDI Host, the local device and the M365 cloud. As the VDI setup makes the setup a bit more complex.

With all media streams being routed from the local client to the Cloud rather than from the VDI Host, capture metrics at the client level is important. The Teams client on the VDI Host however, also plays a key role by managing signaling and session control with the Cloud. If there is significant CPU or memory utilization on the VDI Host, users may experience issues even when media streams are offloaded to the local endpoint. For example, a mid-call failure might occur if there is a network hiccup between the VDI Host and the Cloud.
Comprehensive monitoring would involve covering all three areas and correlating their metrics to provide a holistic and aggregated overview. This process is challenging due to factors such as data delays and unsynchronized timestamps, preventing a holistic and aggregated overview.

Understanding the complexities of troubleshooting Teams call issues in a VDI environment, our latest release of TrueDEM now fills the gaps on VDI monitoring.

To get Teams call insights for your VDI users, install the TrueDEM Agent on the VDI Host (as a provisioned app package for non-persistent VDIs or an app package for persistent VDIs). This setup covers resource utilization and network monitoring on the VDI Host itself.

As media streams are offloaded to the local client during calls, TrueDEM captures them directly via the Teams Client in the VDI session. Collecting audio, video, and screen sharing metrics during active Teams calls as well as network connectivity information for the data routed via de local endpoint. TrueDEM detects that your call is on WiFi even though the VDI Host has a wired connection.
Lastly, the TrueDEM also helps in identifying  if VDI Hosts are properly configured for any optimizations.

Because the TrueDEM Agent is running on the VDI, and not on the physical endpoint, we currently do not track CPU and memory on the local machine level. We do however track all the other major elements and connectivity that make up the complex monitoring triangle of Teams calls in a VDI environment. Giving you unparalleled insight into what’s going on with your VDI users’ Teams calls for proactive monitoring and effective troubleshooting.
 

Would you like to more about monitoring your VDI users’ Teams call experience? Contact us to try it out for yourself.