XenApp 7.x open published apps session report PowerShell script

Whilst there’s many amazing things being introduced by Citrix recently (in the XenApp/XenDesktop space) I do sometimes feel that Citrix Studio can be somewhat limited in comparison to previous admin tools.

I would say one of the common things that administrators and consultants need to know on a daily basis is how many instances of each published app are being run within a Citrix environment. I was a little perplexed at first why this wasn’t easily available through Citrix Director without making connections directly to the database through an OData connection, but I guess in the end they decided that it simply wasn’t relevant .

So I’ve been working on a PowerShell script to give me a very simple view of how an environment’s application usage stacks up, and from there on in I can decide whether everything’s running fine or dig a little deeper.

The first drafts of the script originally required me to manually specify the delivery group(s) against which it would be run, but in this example I’m using a multi-select list box to allow me to choose more than one (just hold down the CTRL key). However,  since each execution of the script only gives me a point-in-time view this example script will refresh every 60 seconds until the maximum interval of one day has passed.

The sort order is currently defined based upon the total number of application instances running, ordered by largest to least, so bear this in mind when selecting multiple delivery groups as the resulting view may not be what you’re looking for.

if ((Get-PSSnapin -Name "Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) -eq $Null){Add-PSSnapin Citrix.Broker.Admin.V2}
$selectmachines = @()
$count = 1440 # Script will run until 1 day has passed, updating every 60 seconds
$selectdg = Get-BrokerDesktopGroup | Select-Object -Property Name, UID | Sort-Object -Property UID | Out-GridView -OutputMode Multiple -Title 'Select one or more delivery groups to display active sessions'
foreach ($i in $selectdg) {
$selectmachines+=Get-BrokerMachine -DesktopGroupUid $i.Uid | Select-Object MachineName -ExpandProperty MachineName
}
Do {
clear #Reset the screen contents before redisplaying the connection count
Get-BrokerApplicationInstance -Filter 'MachineName -in $selectmachines'| group-Object -Property ApplicationName | sort-object -property Count -Descending | Format-Table -AutoSize -Property Count,Name
$count--
Start-sleep -Seconds 60
} while ($count -ne 0)

 

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