Need for an agent on user device:
The world is hybrid: employees work from cafes, libraries, remote work locations, and offices. Businesses need to support low-latency, high-bandwidth applications hosted in the cloud and have strategies to implement a seamless 'Digital Experience' for end-users. In this hybrid world, having a solution that gives IT administrators and network operators visibility into how users perceive the network is more important than ever.
UXI Agent for Android devices:
The UXI Agent for Android is software that runs on end-user Android devices and provides visibility into how users see the network, i.e., their digital experience.
Useful Information provided by the agent as of today:
Wi-fi experience – not only collects detailed Wi-Fi metrics such as signal (RSSI), Tx and Rx bitrate, BSSID, band, and channel, but also shows a Wi-Fi visualization chart with information such as channel overlap, SSIDs, channel width, and signal strength of nearby APs. This helps admins visualize the signal strength and interference experienced by the end user.
App experience – can be used to test mission critical apps both internal and external to your environment. The agent gives useful information like DNS lookup time, HTTP Get Elapsed time, packet loss, latency, jitter, gateway reachability etc.
Back in time troubleshooting - dashboard provides 30 days of data, the network admin can validate network changes and see historical values for root-cause-analysis.
Device Information - collects information of the host device and captures information like: Persistent Device Identifier (PID), serial number, IP address, primary/secondary DNS, battery percentage, temperature, etc. This can help admins know the user's device details and battery health.
Data push destination - enables IT teams to export data and correlate the client view with other sources of data to identify any discrepancies and further decision-making.
Agent troubleshooting UI - highlights network and device details that are usually requested by IT teams for rapid troubleshooting. The details displayed include phone being connected to the network or not, SSID name, phone name, UXI dashboard connectivity, UXI services connectivity, Permissions info, Agent version, etc.
Installation, Configuration, and Subscription :
UXI Agent can be installed on Android devices from Google Play or can be downloaded and installed as an apk from the HPE Networking Support Portal.
The agent connects to the cloud-hosted dashboard as soon as it is configured. The agent is configured by scanning a QR code or using managed configurations from the MDM.
A subscription from UXI is required for the dashboard to work. Subscriptions are enforced on the dashboard not on the agent.
The platform supported today includes android 11 and above.
Agent in action:
Once the agent is started, the agent will appear on your UXI dashboard and begin reporting test results in 10 to 15 minutes.
The UXI Agent runs in the background on the device and runs low-impact synthetic tests to measure what the end-user experience is like from the perspective of the handheld.
The agent will only test the networks that are defined in the "Wireless" list on the UXI cloud and that the device is connected to. The network needs to be assigned to the group that agent is in.
The SSID name is the only mandatory field required to define a network for the agent to test it, you do not need the network credentials.
Example Scenario:
Previously, the agent automatically tested the user's home network and reported the results. Moving forward, this automatic testing will cease unless the user's home network, at the very least its SSID, is defined in the "Wireless" network list on the UXI dashboard and the network is assigned to the group the agent belongs.
Synthetic Tests
The test cycle runs 5 minutes apart and performs the following tests:
AP Scan
Gateway reachability
DNS check (a check to see if the agent can resolve cdn.capenetworks.io)
HTTP GET
PING
Path Analysis (ICMP ping only)
You can assign the agents to groups and then assign test to groups and networks.
If the agent doesn't support an assigned test, the agent will skip it.
Useful Links: