The Farm Metric Server is a MetaFrame CPS(Citrix Presentation Server) server that is selected to correlate all farm metrics and server events as it relates to the entire farm. Currently, the only farm metric that is available is the application count for applications. Valid server events that are identified by the Farm Metric Server are server down, server up, metric green, metric red and metric yellow. Every time a server goes down or comes up, the Farm Metric Server is notified. The Farm Metric Server is notified anytime that a server metric changes thresholds.

The Farm Metric Server (FMS) is responsible for monitoring the status of the metrics of all servers and published applications in the entire server farm. This server actually controls the metric icons, changing their status as conditions warrant. The FMS gets its information from the zone data collector, which is updated every 15 seconds by each MetaFrame XP server.

The Farm Metric Server is also considered a CPS member server. It has the same responsibilities to the summary database functionality as other member servers. The only difference is that it also has the responsibility of the tasks associated with a Farm Metric Server.

On XenApp 5 it’s possible to configure farm metric servers in resource manager (xenapp advanced configuration console).In Xenapp 6, we can find this feature in Edge sight.

Farm Metric Server Errors

Error1: From the Farm Metric Server tab within the Resource Manager node of the Citrix Management Console:“The Farm Metric(s) server cannot be contacted. This will cause Resource Manager to function incorrectly. Check that the Farm Metric(s) server is running and can be contacted. Error Code: C0160af2.”

Cause This was reproduced with a two server MetaFrame XP farm with only a single server configured as a farm metric server. No backup farm metric server was configured. Open the Citrix Management Console on the non-farm metric server. Ensure all is fine and restart the server. Refresh the Citrix Management Console while the farm metric server is restarting. Observe the error.

The above steps can also be done without restarting the farm metric server. Simply stop the IMA Service on the farm metric server.

The Watcher tab within the Resource Manager node or the Resource Manager tab within the server Properties should indicate “Server Down.” You may need to refresh the Citrix Management Console.

Resolution The reproduction steps above are not likely to be the cause of the issue. They are just to indicate that the farm metric server is unreachable. Reproducing the issue by stopping the IMA Service indicates that IMA may be in a hung state, the server Resource Manager files are somehow corrupt, or the server is having difficulty accessing the Resource Manager information within the database.

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Error2: (Code: c0160af2, The Farm Metric Server cannot be contacted. Make sure the Farm Metric Servers are running and that you can connect to them. Resource Manager will not function correctly as a result.) when Opening the Citrix Management Console on MetaFrame XPe

The error can be reproduced with two servers in a farm. By default, the first server in the farm that has Resource Manager installed becomes the Farm Metric Server. Installing Resource Manager to Server 2 in the farm does not automatically make Server 2 a Backup Farm Metric Server. Opening the Citrix Management Console > Resource Manager > Farm Metric Server tab showed only Server 1 as the Farm Metric Server and as a Backup Farm Metric Server.

Therefore, if Server 1 is powered off and the Citrix Management Console is opened on Server 2, the above error is generated. If Server 2 is set as a Backup Farm Metric server and Server 1 is powered off, you would not get the above error message.

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