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How to Avoid the Top 7 Mistakes Made When Managing Citrix Performance
Raymond OteroManager of End-User Computing Anexinet [email protected]
Srinivas RamanathanCEOeG [email protected]
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Moderator
Christine AckleyDirector of Marketing OperationseG [email protected]
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Logistics
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Srinivas RamanathanCEOeG [email protected]
Raymond OteroManager, Infrastructure Delivery & End-User Computing Anexinet [email protected]
Today’s Presenters
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Citrix – Use cases and need for performance management
Top 7 mistakes when managing Citrix performance and how to avoid them
Solution Tour: eG Enterprise for Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop
Q & A
Agenda
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FAST FACTS
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Serving emerging, mid-market & Fortune 1000 clients
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Anexinet – Fast Facts
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Anexinet Client Service Model consists of three Solution Areas led by a Vice President of Delivery:
Application Solutions - develop application and processes that integrate disparate systems
Business Intelligence Solutions - access business critical information for dynamic and accurate decision making
Infrastructure Solutions - deliver highly available converged infrastructure solutions for missions critical applications
Each “Solution Area” consists of core Practice areas
Anexinet – Solutions Portfolio
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Server, Storage, NetworkHP, EMC, Cisco, Oracle/Sun, EnterasysBlade TechnologiesNetworking and ConvergenceSAN (ISCSI/FC/FCOE), NASEnterprise Systems Management
Virtualization and OS PlatformsSoftware Defined DataCenterVMWare, XenServer, Hyper-V, IVMMicrosoft – Azure, O365, SCCM, Hyper-V, AD/ADFS, Exchange, LyncUNIX – HPUX, Linux, Solaris
Data Protection, Security, & ResilienceBackup and RecoveryArchiving, Discovery, and ComplianceSecure Data Access and EncryptionDisaster Recovery and BCP
End User Computing & MobilityVirtual Desktop InfrastructureProfile and Persona ManagementApplication Virtualization/StreamingMobile Device/Application ManagementBYOD and NAC
Anexinet – Infrastructure Solutions
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EUC Solution Partners – Virtualization and Mobility Infrastructures
WorkspaceMobile | Virtual | Secure
Data
Desktops Collaboration
Apps
Personal
Anexinet – EUC Solutions
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Leading provider of IT performance
monitoring, diagnosis and reporting software
Specialists in performance monitoring and management for Desktop and Application Virtualization
Citrix partner since 2003, VMware partner since 2007
Our solutions are used in some of the largest Citrix/VDI deployments in the world
About eG Innovations
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How to Avoid the Top 7 Mistakes Made When Managing Citrix Performance
Raymond OteroManager of End-User Computing Anexinet [email protected]
Srinivas RamanathanCEOeG [email protected]
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Citrix Technology Use Cases
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Source: 2016 Citrix Performance Survey, http://www.eginnovations.com/solutions/sign-in?whitepaper=36
Citrix Services are Business Critical
80%
16%
4%
Very important Somewhat important Not that important
96%see Citrix as being business criticalIf the Citrix service slows down or has an outage, business is impacted.
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Web Applications Citrix ApplicationsRequest content, download and browse on the client – scrolling on the client.
Highly interactive, accesses to the server/remote desktop.
Request / response based, forms filled out on the client, submitted at the end;
Forms filled on the server – every keystroke goes to the server.
Response time requirement: < 4 seconds Response time: < 150 msecs
Sessions used to retain context. Session used to keep the interaction going.
Multiple connections, compression, caching, pre-fetching etc. to speed download.
Single connection, optimization limited to compression.
Throughput requirements higher – download pages, display content.
Throughput less important, interactivity more important.
Infrastructure slowness causes slower access. Infrastructure issues can disconnect sessions, keystrokes don’t show up on time, screen painting is slow. Users get frustrated.
User Experience for Citrix, More Important than for Web Applications
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48%
45%
7%
The most performance sensitive service Similar in performance demands as other services Not that performance sensitive
Citrix – One of the Most Performance Sensitive Applications
Source: 2016 Citrix Performance Survey, http://www.eginnovations.com/solutions/sign-in?whitepaper=36
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MemoryCPU Disk Network
Adequate for simple, client-server applicationsX Not sufficient for complex, modern applications
Citrix Performance Monitoring is NOTMonitoring of Server Resources
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Rachel Berryex-Product Manager,
Citrix Systems
Kevin GoodmanCEO,
FsLogixYAM – Yet Another Monitor
Evaluating Citrix Monitoring Options
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User Experience is a Key to Citrix Success
Logon is slow
Application is slow to
launch
Session gets disconnected
Keystrokes don’t show up on time
Multimedia playback is
choppy
UserExperience Printing
doesn’t work
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1. Look for performance monitoring tools with Citrix domain expertise.
Citrix Performance Monitoring Tips
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Handling Citrix Performance Complaints
My desktop is not working…I cannot login
to my desktop My applications launch very
slowly…
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Handling Citrix Performance Complaints
Who gets the first call?
Who is blamed?
It’s always you - the Citrix Administrator
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Virtualization platform
Server OS
Network in the data center
Citrix tiers
Storage
Infra services (AD, Profile, etc.)
Enterprise applications
Network connection to the user terminals
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
27%
29%
30%
31%
37%
40%
42%
Source: 2016 Citrix Performance Survey, http://www.eginnovations.com/solutions/sign-in?whitepaper=36
Where do Most Citrix Problems Lie?
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Network StoreFront onESX
Active DirectorySQL
XenApp onVMware ESXDelivery Controller on
VMware ESX
License Server
Profile Server
EnterpriseApps
vCenterOracle
Client
SANSwitch
What is the root cause of the service problem?Network? VMware? AD? SQL? Storage? Profile Server?
Where is the Root-Cause?
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1. Look for performance monitoring tools that have Citrix domain expertise.
2. When users complain that “Citrix is slow”, the problem could be anywhere in the infrastructure. End-to-end visibility is a key to rapid troubleshooting.
Citrix Performance Monitoring Tips
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Built-in Citrix Monitoring Tools
Integrated monitoring tool with Citrix XenApp 6.5 No longer included with Citrix products EdgeSight
NetScaler Insight
Multi Admin Consoles
Director/EdgeSight
Citrix Products
Monitoring tools in Citrix XenApp / XenDesktop 7.x
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Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop sessions tracking Deep insights into Citrix logon process Drill downs into applications used
Director
Built-in Citrix Monitoring Tools
How many users are connected
Are there many connection failures?
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Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop sessions tracking Deep insights into Citrix logon process Drill downs into applications used
Director
Built-in Citrix Monitoring Tools
Citrix Director is a good troubleshooting tool, not a monitoring tool.
What applications are running in a user’s session
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Insights into application and bandwidth usage
Network performance visibility: is a slowdown due to the user’s network or your data center network?
NetScaler
Built-in Citrix Monitoring Tools
NetScaler Insight gives you the network-centric view. What if your problems are on the servers/desktops, or in the virtual platform or storage?
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Citrix Director / EdgeSight
VMware VCOPS - Virtual
Task Manager - Windows
Event Viewer - Windows
EMC Ionix - Storage Cisco UCS Manager - Hardware
CiscoWorks - Network
For End-to-End Visibility, You Need …
Lack of integration makes monitoring & diagnosis slow and manual.
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1. Look for performance monitoring tools that have Citrix domain expertise.
2. When users complain that “Citrix is slow”, the problem could be anywhere in the infrastructure. End-to-end visibility is a key to rapid troubleshooting.
3. Built-in tools provided in the Citrix stack are useful, but not always sufficient for managing performance end-to-end.
Citrix Performance Monitoring Tips
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Virtual Server Management Solutions … Monitor the Virtualization platform only – not the connection brokers,
storage, network, profile servers, terminal servers, … Track VMs and not users
No way to map a user to a VM Workload of VM dependent on who is logged in
Monitors a desktop from the outside (black box!) No understanding of what is happening inside the desktop What applications are running? Is high CPU usage because of load or a faulting application?
Virtual Desktop Management = Virtual Server ManagementVDI – New Challenges, New Solutions
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1. Look for performance monitoring that has Citrix domain expertise.
2. When users complain that “Citrix is slow”, the problem could be anywhere in the infrastructure. End-to-end visibility is a key to rapid troubleshooting.
3. Built-in tools provided in the Citrix stack are useful, but not always sufficient for managing performance end-to-end.
4. Virtual desktops are VMs, but you can't use monitoring tools you've used for virtual servers to monitor virtual desktops.
Citrix Performance Monitoring Tips
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Introducing eG Enterprise
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A couple of transactions are seeing errors.
One of the services is having a critical issue.
Monitoring Services, Not Silos
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Some of the transactions are seeing slowness.
Monitoring the User Experience
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Seems to be an issue with the VMware server
hosting virtual desktops.
Analyzing Performance End-to-End
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The issue seems to be inside the virtual desktop (not in
the virtual platform)
Pin-Pointing the Cause of the Problem
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Two of the desktops – user alan’s and james’ are seeing
issues.
Pin-Pointing the Cause of the Problem
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TCP retranmsmit ratio is
very high – this points to a network connection issue to
the desktop.
Pin-Pointing the Cause of the Problem
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Root-Cause of the
problem
Effects of the problem
Making Diagnosis Simple
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Identify & resolve problems preemptively,
before users call!
Network? Database?
Application?
VMware?Citrix?Web?
eG Enterprise is a General Practitioner for your Citrix infrastructure.
Service Owner
eG Enterprise Citrix Service Manager
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1. Look for performance monitoring that has Citrix domain expertise.
2. When users complain that “Citrix is slow”, the problem could be anywhere in the infrastructure. End-to-end visibility is a key to rapid troubleshooting.
3. Built-in tools provided in the Citrix stack are useful, but not always sufficient for managing performance end-to-end.
4. Virtual desktops are VMs, but you can't use monitoring tools you've used for virtual servers to monitor virtual desktops.
5. You don't always have to involve your experts in problem diagnosis, if you invest in service monitoring and auto-correlation.
Citrix Performance Monitoring Tips
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Insights into browser-based accesses
Domain-Expertise with Citrix
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Network latency is affecting Citrix user
experience
Insights into network latency and its impact on Citrix performanceDomain-Expertise with Citrix
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Total login time as seen by the Delivery
Controller
Breakdown of login time into phases
Visibility into Citrix logon process – from the Delivery ControllerDomain-Expertise with Citrix
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Group policy processing is what is
taking time
Details of the CSE that is causing logon
slowness
Visibility into the Citrix logon process from XenAppDomain-Expertise with Citrix
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HDX Channels Bandwidth used Audio bandwidth Video bandwidth Printer bandwidth Drive bandwidth Framehawk frames/s
User & Application Activity Top users by CPU, memory,
IOPS Top applications by CPU,
memory, popularity, IOPS URLs accessed by users
User Experience Logon time Profile load time App launch time Screen refresh latency Network RTT
Citrix Tier-wise Visibility NetScaler StoreFront Provisioning Services Delivery Controller License server Data store
Supporting Infrastructure Virtualization platform Storage Network in DC Network to user terminals Infra services – AD, DNS
Sessions Who logged in, when What applications did
they access When disconnects happen Idle time in session
Citrix Monitoring Capabilities
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Integrated Monitoring of Everything Citrix
Complement & Extend Citrix Performance Management Solutions
NetScaler Insight
Multi Admin Consoles
Director/EdgeSight
Citrix Products
eG Enterprise Performance Monitoring
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Before Migration
After Migration
Use Cases for Performance Monitoring:
Migration Analysis
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Answers key questions about Citrix
usage: who, when, how long, what?
Use Cases for Performance Monitoring:
Compliance and Audit
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A few of the servers are handling most of
the sessions
Use Cases for Performance Monitoring:
Capacity Optimization
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Use Cases for Performance Monitoring: Capacity Planning
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1. Look for performance monitoring that has Citrix domain expertise.
2. When users complain that “Citrix is slow”, the problem could be anywhere in the infrastructure. End-to-end visibility is a key to rapid troubleshooting.
3. Built-in tools provided in the Citrix stack are useful, but not always sufficient for managing performance end-to-end.
4. Virtual desktops are VMs, but you can't use monitoring tools you've used for virtual servers to monitor virtual desktops.
5. You don't always have to involve your experts in problem diagnosis if you invest in service monitoring and auto-correlation.
6. Performance management is more than just about troubleshooting problems.
Citrix Performance Monitoring Tips
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Assess
DesignDeploy
Maintain Plan
Performance Monitoring
When Should Performance Monitoring be Considered?
Baseline the infrastructure from the very beginning
Mitigate risk of failure down the line
Process vs. costly ad-hoc fixes
Ensure scalability & deliver ROI
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1. Look for performance monitoring that has Citrix domain expertise
2. When users complain that “Citrix is slow”, the problem could be anywhere in the infrastructure. End-to-end visibility is a key to rapid troubleshooting.
3. Built-in tools provided in the Citrix stack are useful, but not always sufficient for managing performance end-to-end
4. Virtual desktops are VMs, but you can't use monitoring tools you've used for virtual servers to monitor virtual desktops
5. You don't always have to involve your experts in problem diagnosis if you invest in service monitoring and auto-correlation.
6. Performance management is more than just about troubleshooting problems
7. Don’t look at performance management just AFTER you have deployed the Citrix infrastructure
Citrix Performance Monitoring Tips
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