Installing the Lakeside SysTrack Agent

Expedient Enterprise Workspace - Installing the Lakeside SysTrack Agent

• Overview
• Download the Agent Installer 
• Installation Modes
  • Standard Installation Mode
  • Pooled User Installation Mode
• About Configuration Groups
• Agent Installation Steps
  • Installing the agent on existing persistent desktops
  • Installing the agent on a new persistent desktop image
  • Installing the agent on a non-persistent desktop image

Overview

To feed data into the Lakeside SysTrack platform, you will need to install the SysTrack agent onto your virtual desktops.  

Download the Agent Installer 

Once you are logged into the Lakeside platform, you will find the agent installer download under the Configuration and Management tab.  The download is a zip file that contains the prerequisite C++ redistributable, and two different installer files that you will use depending on your use case.  The installers downloaded in the zip file are unique to your tenant within the Lakeside platform. Data is automatically fed from the desktop machine the agent is installed on into your Lakeside tenant.  Before installing the Lakeside agent, please note that the required installation method will depend on your use case.  Ensure that you are installing the agent in the correct mode for your use case.  

Installation Modes

There are two installation methods relevant to Expedient Enterprise Workspace:  Standard Installation Mode and Pooled User Installation Mode. 

Standard Installation Mode

It would be best to use standard installation mode for persistent virtual desktops.  Standard mode is not meant for non-persistent virtual desktops because standard installation mode relies on persistent storage on the virtual desktop machine to store its performance data database, which would be lost in a non-persistent desktop model.  You will use the setup.exe installer in the ClientInstall.zip download in standard installation mode.

Pooled User Installation Mode

It would be best to use pooled user installation mode for non-persistent single-user desktops.  This installation mode matches what should be used for non-persistent virtual desktops in Expedient Enterprise Workspace.  In this mode, the agent will recognize when a user logs in to the virtual desktop machine and, on the user login, will pull down the performance data database for the user from the Lakeside server.  

In pooled user installation mode, you will use the SysTrackCloudEdition.msi installer in the ClientInstall.zip download.

About Configuration Groups

Configuration groups are a concept within the Lakeside SysTrack platform to group virtual desktop machines and virtual desktop users.  This is especially important in a Pooled User Installation Mode and non-persistent desktops.  In a non-persistent desktop model, systrack follows the user (within a configuration group), not the desktop machine.  Similar to how Horizon would expect a user to only have one session at a time within a virtual desktop pool, SysTrack expects a user to only have one active session at a time within a configuration group.  To maintain this one-to-one relationship, you may wish to define Lakeside configuration groups that align with the desktop images that you make within Horizon.  To illustrate this, consider the following example.  Imagine you have two different desktop images created within Horizon; One called MyCompany-PersistentImage-1 and MyCompany-NonPersistentImage-1.  You've created three separate desktop assignments to assign MyCompany-NonPersistentImage-1 to your Sales, Marketing, and HR teams so they can access a wide variety of your applications. You've also created a desktop assignment to assign MyCompany-PersistentImage-1 to just the Sales team so that they can access a specific application you want to have them run on persistent desktops.  Configuration groups are not groups that you would create within the Lakeside UI, but rather they are something you define as an installation parameter on the agent install so that the agent feeds data to a particular configuration group.  In our example, you would install the Lakeside agent on your MyCompany-NonPersistentImage-1 image with the install flag to feed data to the MyCompany-NonPersistentImage-1 configuration group, and you would install the Lakeside agent on your MyCompany-PersistentImage-1 image with the install flag to feed data to the MyCompany-PersistentImage-1 configuration group.  

Agent Installation Steps

The steps to install the Lakeside SysTrack agent will depend on your particular use case.  The three common install cases are detailed below. 

Installing the agent on existing persistent desktops

If you have existing persistent desktops deployed that you wish to install the Lakeside SysTrack agent on, you can run the agent installer on each desktop machine manually or via a software management solution of your choosing, such as SCCM.  For persistent desktops, you can run the setup.exe without any special install flags, or you can run it with the /c flag to define a configuration group.  Example below

Setup.exe /c "MyConfigurationName"

Installing the agent on a new persistent desktop image

The steps in this section are for if you wish to include the LakeSide SysTrack agent in a desktop image that you will use for the deployment of new persistent desktops

When configuring your desktop machine before converting it to an image, run the steps listed in the previous section to install the agent on your desktop VM that you will use for your image.  Once the agent is installed, perform the steps detailed below before converting your desktop VM to an image.  The steps below need to be performed before converting to an image because the agent will reconfigure itself on its next start.

• Stop the Systems Management Agent service.
• Delete the existing log files:
  • 64bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\SysTrack\LsiAgent\*.log
  • 32bit: C:\Program Files\SysTrack\LsiAgent\*.log
• Delete the existing collection database folder:
  • 64bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\SysTrack\LsiAgent\MDB
  • 32bit: C:\Program Files\SysTrack\LsiAgent\MDB\
• Delete the existing condense  folder:
  • 64bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\SysTrack\LsiAgent\Condense
  • 32bit: C:\Program Files\SysTrack\LsiAgent\Condense

Installing the agent on a non-persistent desktop image

The steps in this section are for if you wish to include the LakeSide SysTrack agent in a desktop image that you will use to deploy new non-persistent desktops.

When configuring your desktop machine before converting it to an image, run the install command similar to the example below to run SysTrackCloudEdition.msi and set a configuration group for the agent.  

msiexec /i SysTrackCloudEdition.msi ALLUSERS=1 REBOOT=R POOLNAME="My VDI Pool"