LoginVSI 4 First Impressions and Review

Login VSI have released a new version of their load testing product. The new version v4 looks like
a complete re-write from v3.6

The installers, the look and feel and way it integrates are all changed.



Launcher Install
The Launcher installer requires a VSI share to be created before you launch the installer, as it does not seem to dynamically query for the share you must have the share created before hitting the button to look for the share.  After this however the installer moves along very quickly.

The Installer does not however appear to install anything it just copys all the code into directories of your VSI share.
It failed for me to create me any shortcuts so i had to go browsing through the install location folder to add my own start menu shortcuts.

Management Console
The management console is a bit smarter looking with Windows 8 style panes.
Some of the default tests like Medium (No flash) do not appear to be available in the workload test anymore ?
The installer now puts down all the client types like CTXConnector which saves performing additional installs. (this is welcome)
There is a nice wizard for configuring the connection type. However this does not seem to work with the CSV option and puts down the wrong syntax. There is no mention in the document ion of how to setup the CSV file. After some playing about you need to put %CSV_ and then the header names from your CSV file
eg. %CSV_Username%

You can quite easily tailor the workloads now by copying an existing to make your own and then change various timings.

Target Set-up
The target setup is quick and gives you options on the installed components. The install wizard does not show a complete message however so im unsure if it did actually finish correctly.
Looking in ADD/REMOVE Programs there is nothing.
Looking in shortcuts there is nothing.
In fact i can find no evidence that Login VSI installed at all. Except that its pre-reqs like PDF Maker etc.. are present.
It appears that alot of the target code that used be installed on is now central on the management controller as is copied down locally when the test executes.
The test wants to copy to %TEMP% which is typically the users profile area.
(this area can cause problems if you have a lockdown, so im not sure why they moved it there, Appsense Environments certainly wont like it put their due to trusted ownership checking)
As a workaround for my client i changed %TEMP% to C:\temp and gave all the VSI test accounts NTFS permissions to this area.

AD - Setup
Logion VSI do seem to have realized that their AD Setup utility might seem great in a isolated lab but no-one in the real world is doing this. People have their test kit in the LIVE AD, and no-one lets you run some funny tool to create OUs , GPOS and scripts in the NETLOGON in the production AD.
To this end they provide some manual ways of doing stuff.
AD account creation well anyone can do this with PS or VBS or a change request. So do this as per normal procedure for you environment.
Login VSI now provide the GPO as an import. (it also does alot less than before)
They still want you however to create a startup shortcut in the NETLOGON share. This is still a rubbish idea . I create the shortcut to the LOGON.CMD and place this in the STARTUP folder of the machines i want to test (be that Xenapp or Windows 7 VM's)

The Batch file i create in startup calls the LOGON.CMD back on the VSI share point.
The LOGON.CMD file then pulls all the files down into that users Local Profile area.
Then it runs VSI.EXE to start the tests. If moving the logon scripts to this location a change needs to also be performed on the management console under infrastructure setting the startup mode should be set to Chained.

I also had a problem where the test wants to import .REG files. This again was blocked for my customer. I converted the REG entries to a VBS Script and then set the VBS Script to run in the all users startup folder. To prevent the .REG import occuring and giving me the blocked message i put a REM into the workload area in the management console.