The document discusses upcoming enhancements to Citrix Director and EdgeSight products. It highlights how the products are being integrated to provide a unified monitoring console for XenDesktop environments. Key updates include performance management features in EdgeSight for long-term trend analysis, and network inspection capabilities for troubleshooting connection issues. Real-world examples are provided on how Citrix internal IT uses the products to monitor their environment.
Excalibur: best practices for virtual desktop operations leveraging Citrix Director with EdgeSight
1. Intro:
Good
a&ernoon
and
thanks
to
everyone
for
being
here.
I’m
Lisa
Berlin,
Product
Manager
for
Director
and
EdgeSight.
I
want
to
talk
to
you
about
Citrix
Director
and
EdgeSight
and
where
we
are
taking
it.
This
is
a
great
innovaGon
of
our
product
roadmap!
Having
formerly
been
a
Citrix
customer
and
then
customer
facing
as
a
manager
in
the
Citrix
Technical
Support
team,
this
has
given
me
some
great
insight
as
we
have
developed
this
product.
I’m
here
with
Chris
Roberts,
Sr.
Manager
of
our
Citrix
IT,
who
will
take
you
through
some
real
life
scenarios
of
how
our
internal
IT
uses
this
product.
Today
we’d
like
to
lead
a
conversaGon
dedicated
to
the
product
roadmap
of
Citrix
Director
and
EdgeSight,
what
it
is
and
share
some
insights
and
best
pracGces
on
how
to
use
this
tool
to
monitor
your
XenDesktop
7
environment.
In
doing
so,
we
will
address:
Key
Points:
• Why
organizaGons
like
yours
need
this
type
of
troubleshooGng
and
monitoring.
• What
Citrix
has
learned,
based
upon
discussions
with
customers,
reviewing
internal
support
cases,
real-‐life
experiences
from
Citrix
IT
transformaGon
soluGon.
• How
Director
with
EdgeSight
can
help
your
organizaGon
reduce
Gme
to
resoluGon
and
monitor
the
health
and
performance
of
a
Citrix
delivered
applicaGon
and
desktop
virtualizaGon
soluGon
1
4. Key
points:
Intro:
The
ability
to
properly
troubleshoot
and
monitor
your
environment
are
the
important
factors
to
enable:
• Expanding
deployments,
end
users
are
accessing
from
all
geographic
locaGons
• Need
to
ensure
the
experience
is
good
• With
XD,
there
are
many
moving
parts
so
it’s
important
to
indicate
where
the
problem
is
• Proving
value
through
reporGng
-‐
Customers
need
to
know
usage,
how
has
the
health
been
trending
• Do
I
have
enough
capacity
available
for
future
load?
4
5. What
do
we
know?
It
is
our
product,
we
know
it
beWer
than
anyone
else.
With
Director
and
EdgeSight
you
will
see
how
we
use
our
knowledge
to
provide
5
6. Key
points:
Next
generaGon
Director
rearchitected
on
the
XD
7
plaYorm
Unified
console
provides
the
real-‐Gme
troubleshooGng
along
with
integraGon
of
new
EdgeSight
features,
Performance
Manager
and
Network
Inspector
Scales
with
the
plaYorm
Most
common
problem
–
“I
can’t
connect”
Instrumented
XD
to
provide
various
failure
causes
for
connecGon
and
machine
failures
to
determine
root
cause
End
user
experience
starts
with
logon
Director
breaks
the
logon
into
each
of
the
steps,
providing
the
analysis
so
the
admin
is
able
to
pinpoint
exactly
where
the
slowdown
is
occurring
6
7. Key
points:
Driving
Evolu=on
EdgeSight
evolves
from
a
standalone
product
into
an
integrated
soluGon
expanding
the
value
proposiGon
of
exisGng
products
such
as
Director
Providing
a
holis=c
view
Instead
of
focusing
on
product
silos,
this
new
approach
allows
Citrix
to
provide
a
more
comprehensive
and
holisGc
experience
7
8. Key
points:
Pla=num
customers
get
the
EdgeSight
features
EdgeSight
performance
management
Longer
trending
data
allows
the
admin
to
assess
his
environment
over
Gme
Auto-‐baselining
–
comparison
of
current
performance
based
from
the
customer’s
own
environment
EdgeSight
network
analysis
IntegraGon
of
NetScaler
HDX
Insight
provides
a
unified
console
to
troubleshoot
network
issues
8
9. With
XenDesktop
7,
we
have
expanded
the
role
of
the
Help
Desk
to
provide
the
L2
Admins
addiGonal
troubleshooGng
and
environment
health
metrics
9
10. Add
in
the
EdgeSight
performance
management
feature,
customers
get
extended
historical
data
retenGon
which
provides
the
longer
term
capacity
analysis
and
health
and
performance
trending
over
Gme.
Helps
admin
understand
if
a
problem
is
occurring
every
Monday
at
9:00a
Enables
comparison
of
previous
quarters’
capacity
over
current
quarters
capacity
through
the
concurrent
sessions
analysis
Assessment
of
health
-‐
connecGon
and
machine
failures
Capacity
–
history
of
usage
based
on
sessions
enable
projecGon
for
future
capacity
Performance
–
trending
of
App
load
evaluators
and
logon
performance
provide
visibility
into
historical
performance
indicators
enabling
administrators
to
adjust
environment
as
needed
10
11. Key
points:
For
plaGnum
customers
-‐
EdgeSight
network
analysis
Provides
ICA
packet
visibility
enabling
the
admin
to
view
the
latency
and
throughput
(bandwidth)
uGlizaGon
Drill
down
into
per
user
ICA
network
uGlizaGon
ApplicaGon/desktop
launch
metrics
–
number
of
launches,
launch
duraGon
11
12. 12
How
Director
has
helped
us
last
two
years
Some
of
the
pracGcal
applicaGons
of
the
features
coming
in
Director
with
EdgeSight
13. • In
IT,
we’ve
moved
on
from
the
era
of
rebooGng
and
reimaging
• Standardized
corporate
laptop
becoming
the
past
• Our
service
desk
team
is
virtual,
not
physical
13
14. • 8800
employees
• 90
Offices
Across
35
Countries
• Number
of
remote
employees
• Those
based
in
offices
are
on
the
move
and
working
from
home
outside
of
business
hours
14
15.
• 7,100
desktops
deployed
in
four
corporate
datacenters
around
the
world
• Offer
a
mix
of
Pooled,
Dedicated,
and
now
PvD,
based
on
job
funcGon
• Keep
their
desktop
next
to
their
user
data
–
Exchange,
home
folders,
etc
for
best
performance
• Secure
corporate
data
in
the
datacenter,
while
providing
a
great
desktop
experience
on
any
device
15
16. • 3
Gered
IT
team
• Level
1
&
2
teams
use
Director
exclusively
to
assist
users
• Costs
increase
and
saGsfacGon
declines
with
each
escalaGon
• User
saGsfacGon
drives
adopGon
• Business
will
find
alternaGve
soluGons
on
their
own
• At
Citrix
for
five
months
of
this
year
–
84%
of
XenDesktop
issues
resolved
on
first
call
16
17. • Very
Gme
intensive
to
find
events
and
correlate
to
issues
• Probably
also
have
a
change
management
system,
but
again
Gme
intensive
doing
detecGve
work
• Series
of
smaller
changes
can
lead
up
to
a
big
impact,
the
Gming
of
which
doesn’t
always
correlate
to
the
incident
• Director
puts
the
data
in
an
easy
to
consume
format
• Distributed,
follow
the
sun
operaGons
team
• Everyone
sees
the
same,
making
conversaGons
easier
17
18. • What
is
normal?
• Trending
is
key
to
providing
context,
Director
with
Edgesight
provides
that.
• User
workloads
vary
by
department,
region
and
Gme.
What’s
going
on
now
may
be
twice
your
normal
of
last
week
(end
of
quarter,
etc).
• Use
Director
to
see
and
understand
these
trends
• End
of
quarter
period,
increased
acGvity
Sales,
Services,
Finance,
Customer
Care
• Found
that
our
India
employees
were
using
Pooled
desktops
out
of
Miami,
not
Singapore,
because
the
data
they
were
accessing
most
o&en
was
there
18
19. • First
reacGon
to
seeing
something
going
wrong
is
figuring
out
how
to
fix
it
• O&en
however,
‘work’
gets
in
way.
It’s
not
a
problem
yet…
storage,
hypervisors,
other
metrics
sGll
look
good,
and
users
aren’t
complaining.
• Is
this
a
cyclical,
but
normal
occurrence?
• If
it
keeps
happening,
will
it
get
worse?
• Decide
on
acGon
and
be
confident
with
it,
using
all
the
informaGon
19
20. • Make
it
easy
for
your
employees
on
day
one
with
XenDesktop
• Citrix
has
acquired
a
number
of
companies,
onboard
them
with
XenDesktop
• Gives
a
great
first
day
experience,
relives
some
of
the
worry
of
integraGon
• Procurement
doesn’t
happen
overnight,
even
in
the
cloud,
need
budget
• Go
to
the
business
before
capacity
becomes
a
problem,
don’t
need
to
keep
large
excess
numbers
in
reserve
• Pilot,
get
real
numbers
from
Director,
expand
20
22. Key
points:
Customer
interviews,
sat
with
Help
Desk
personnel
to
observe
their
day
L1
did
3
things:
Restarted
the
user’s
machine
Shadowed
in
to
bring
up
Windows
Task
Manager
and
look
for
the
hung
applicaGon
or
process
consuming
CPU
or
memory
Reset
profile
(if
allowed
and
varied
company
to
company)
Citrix
created
the
AcGonable
Help
Desk
page
to
resolve
issues
at
first
touch
Benefits
Opportunity
to
reduce
operaGng
costs
Industry
standards
–
32%
of
customers
call
back
because
their
issues
wasn’t
resolved
on
their
first
call
Industry
call
center
average
is
1.4
calls
to
resolve
a
customer’s
problem
Improve
customer
saGsfacGon
For
every
1%
FCR,
you
get
a
1%
improvement
in
customer
saGsfacGon
FCR
is
the
highest
correlated
metric
to
customer
saGsfacGon
(opposite
can
occur
for
dissaGsfacGon)
22
23. Key
points:
Expanded
User
Details
adds
AcGvity
Manager,
Logon
duraGon,
comparing
current
session
to
same
user
in
the
last
7
days
to
that
user’s
delivery
group
–
easy
to
determine
where
the
problem
may
be
Details
on
Microso&
and
Citrix
profiles
–
ability
to
reset
the
profile
Add
in
EdgeSight
network
analysis
to
bring
key
network
performance
measurements,
example
–
can
determine
if
it
is
client
side
(WAN)
or
server
side
(LAN)
problem
23
24. Key
points:
Expanded
User
Details
adds
AcGvity
Manager,
Logon
duraGon,
comparing
current
session
to
same
user
in
the
last
7
days
to
that
user’s
delivery
group
–
easy
to
determine
where
the
problem
may
be
Details
on
Microso&
and
Citrix
profiles
–
ability
to
reset
the
profile
Add
in
EdgeSight
network
analysis
to
bring
key
network
performance
measurements,
example
–
can
determine
if
it
is
client
side
(WAN)
or
server
side
(LAN)
problem
24
25. Key
points:
Expanded
User
Details
adds
AcGvity
Manager,
Logon
duraGon,
comparing
current
session
to
same
user
in
the
last
7
days
to
that
user’s
delivery
group
–
easy
to
determine
where
the
problem
may
be
Details
on
Microso&
and
Citrix
profiles
–
ability
to
reset
the
profile
Add
in
EdgeSight
network
analysis
to
bring
key
network
performance
measurements,
example
–
can
determine
if
it
is
client
side
(WAN)
or
server
side
(LAN)
problem
25
26. Key
points:
Expanded
User
Details
adds
AcGvity
Manager,
Logon
duraGon,
comparing
current
session
to
same
user
in
the
last
7
days
to
that
user’s
delivery
group
–
easy
to
determine
where
the
problem
may
be
Details
on
Microso&
and
Citrix
profiles
–
ability
to
reset
the
profile
Add
in
EdgeSight
network
analysis
to
bring
key
network
performance
measurements,
example
–
can
determine
if
it
is
client
side
(WAN)
or
server
side
(LAN)
problem
26
27. Key
points:
Expanded
User
Details
adds
AcGvity
Manager,
Logon
duraGon,
comparing
current
session
to
same
user
in
the
last
7
days
to
that
user’s
delivery
group
–
easy
to
determine
where
the
problem
may
be
Details
on
Microso&
and
Citrix
profiles
–
ability
to
reset
the
profile
Add
in
EdgeSight
network
analysis
to
bring
key
network
performance
measurements,
example
–
can
determine
if
it
is
client
side
(WAN)
or
server
side
(LAN)
problem
27
28. Key
points:
TroubleshooGng
dashboard
(click)
Shows
errors
with
connecGon
and
machine
failures,
now
can
see
errors
in
real
Gme,
allowing
IT
admins
to
proacGvely
prevent
failures
causing
a
major
business
impact
(click)
All
charts
show
the
last
60
min.,
updated
every
minute
Concurrent
session
connected
over
the
past
hour
(click)
#
of
logons
compared
to
the
average
logon
duraGon
–
shows
impact
of
a
logon
storm
to
the
end
users,
indicated
by
extended
logon
Gmes
(click)
Infrastructure
panel
provides
hypervisor
alerts,
delivery
controller
service
alerts
-‐
noGficaGon
on
key
DDC
services
Click
on
numbers,
takes
you
to
a
drill
down
view
(next
slide)
28
29. The
drill
down
view
brings
the
failure
context
from
the
dashboard
Shows
all
informaGon
on
who
was
affected
and
why,
Gme
of
failure,
etc
Enables
global
acGons
for
power
control,
maint
mode,
send
messages,
etc.
29
30. Clicking
on
the
chart
in
the
dashboard
workflow
brings
admin
to
the
connecGon
failures
trends
page
for
further
invesGgaGon
ConfiguraGon
logging
which
tracks
admin
acGons,
is
brought
into
the
Trends
failure
charts
to
provide
the
context
and
correlaGon
of
why
failures
are
happening.
In
this
case,
the
admin
enabled
maintenance
mode,
and
as
users
started
to
login,
they
weren’t
able
to
because
the
machines
were
not
available
30
31. Key
points:
Trends
view
provides
logon
performance
Comparison
of
duraGon
Gmes
with
previous
baseline
31
32. Key
points:
New
trend
report
for
load
evaluaGon
Those
from
XA
world
understand
this
metric.
Shown
here,
able
to
beWer
understand
how
the
load
evaluaGon
if
affecGng
the
logged
on
users
Can
choose
Gmeframe.
Export.
Show
delivery
group
32
33. Key
points:
Historical
trending
with
providing
environment
capacity
and
performance
and
analysis
Trending
over
7
days,
last
month,
last
year,
custom
date
ranges
enabled
Auto-‐baselining
–
baselines
built
from
the
customer
environment
33
34. Key
points:
Brings
the
network
aspect
to
the
desktop
and
apps
administrator
Breaks
down
the
ICA
packet
for
analysis
Provides
key
network
performance
metrics
such
as
jiWer,
to
enable
admins
to
understand
what
may
be
affecGng
voice
or
video
performance
Provides
the
ICA
RTT
compared
to
the
network
latency
–
enables
determinaGon
if
it
something
in
the
network
or
XD
applicaGon
server
34
36. The
Monitor
Service
is
a
new
XenDesktop
service
for
collecGon
and
managing
the
historical
data
shown
in
Director.
It
collects
session
usage,
logon
performance
details,
and
connecGon
and
machine
failure
informaGon.
InstrumentaGon
in
the
VDAs
and
the
Broker
service
is
collected
by
the
Monitor
Service
as
events.
The
events
are
pieced
together
onto
a
data
model
that
can
answer
quesGons
like
“Where
is
all
the
Gme
being
spent
during
the
logon
process?”.
The
data
is
stored
in
a
logical
monitor
database
which
can
either
be
in
the
XenDesktop
site
database
for
small
deployments
or
a
separate
database
for
larger
enterprise
deployments.
Customers
can
pull
data
from
ODATA
API
to
put
into
CSV
format.
This
will
be
publically
documented
For
large
deployments,
recommend
separate
broker,
monitoring,
configuraGon
DBs
with
SQL.
36
38. Director
and
EdgeSight
provides:
A
comprehensive
monitoring
and
troubleshooGng
soluGon
allowing
the
customer
to
understand
every
aspect
of
his
Citrix
environment
The
ability
to
correlate
end-‐user
experience
with
Citrix
desktop
and
applicaGon
delivery
through
ICA
protocol
level
parsing
A
single
pane
of
glass
soluGon
for
troubleshooGng
and
monitoring
Capacity
management
and
health/performance
trending
38