5 Best Practices for Ensuring Post-Migration Citrix Performance

© eG Innovations, Inc | www.eginnovations.com
5 Best Practices for Ensuring
Post-Migration Citrix Performance
Deliver Peak Performing Applications & Desktops
eG Innovations
5 Best Practices for Ensuring
Deliver Peak Performing Applications & Desktops

About eG Innovations
Faster diagnosis and resolution of
performance problems
Enhanced service delivery and user
satisfaction
Maximum business productivity
and cost savings
Accelerated IT deployments and
production rollouts
Transform IT Service Delivery
into Business Advantage
Worldwide Locations
Global Headquarters: Singapore
US Headquarters: New Jersey
Founded in 2001
eG Innovations is a provider of enterprise-class IT performance management
software that delivers end-to-end monitoring, diagnosis, reporting, and
analytics across physical, virtual, cloud, and hybrid IT environments
www.eginnovations.com

2018: The Year of Citrix Migration
18%
29%
23%
17%
13%
Within 3 months Within 6 months Within 1 year
Already migrated Not sure, no plan as of now
70%
XenApp 6.5 is reaching
EOL on June 30, 2018
• 70% of organizations will
migrate to XenApp &
XenDesktop 7.x. 87% are
expected to be on 7.x by
the end of the year.
2018 Citrix Migration Survey: www.eginnovations.com/Citrix-Migration-Trends

What Changes with the Migration?
IMA FMA
Farm Site
Worker Group Machine Catalog/Delivery Group
Worker/Session Host Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA)
Data Collector Delivery Controller
Zone Site
Local Host Cache Connection Leasing
IMA Datastore Central Site Database (SQL Server)
EdgeSight Director
XenApp &
XenDesktop 7.x
Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2016 and 2012 R2
XenApp 6.5
 Migration to XA/XD 7.x is not an in-place upgrade
 Need to set up a brand new infrastructure
 New components to be deployed and configured

35%
38%
49%
52%
68%
80%
Ensuring that the utilization of your infrastructure was
optimized for user density
Maintaining security and compliance standards
Troubleshooting problems quickly when they happen
Compatibility and smooth functioning of the supporting
infrastructure
Ensuring that the user experience did not degrade
Ensuring that all your applications and desktops worked
as expected
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Ensuring that applications and desktops
worked as expected
Ensuring that user experience did not
degrade
Compatibility and smooth functioning of
the supporting infra
Troubleshooting problems quickly
Maintaining security and compliance
standards
Ensuring optimized utilization of the
infrastructure
MaintainingStatusQuo
AftertheMigration
AddressingPerformance,
SecurityandCapacityConcerns
Biggest Migration Challenges and Concerns

5 Best Practices for Achieving Stellar

Understanding Citrix User Experience
Application/
Desktop Launch
Application
Access
StoreFront/
NetScaler Logon
Citrix Session
Logon
• Was application
launch successful?
• Did it take too much
time?
• Is the end-user facing
any screen refresh
latency, disconnects?
• How is EDT
performance?
• Were authentication
and enumeration
successful?
• AD authentication
• Application
enumeration
• Profile loading
• GPO processing
• Session establishment
• Application start-up
• Ready for interaction
• Screen/keystroke latency
• Bandwidth (audio, video,
printer, drive)
• Session resources (CPU,
GPU, memory, disk)
Diagnose Problems to Ensure Session Reliability
• Was the logon slow?
• If so, why?

Two Ways of Monitoring User Experience
• Monitor real user connectivity
and interaction with Citrix
session (passive monitoring)
• Get real-time measures of actual
user experience
• Identify which users are affected,
where, when, and why
Real User Monitoring
• Measure user experience by
simulating user logon and session
access (active monitoring)
• Get measure of user experience
even when there is no real user
• Proactively detect issues before
end-users encounter them
Synthetic Simulation

Benchmark User Experience Before and After
Migration
Launch application
on StoreFront
Enumerated desktops
on StoreFront
Log into session via
Citrix StoreFront
Login to
SAP Portal
Access HR
information
Perform tasks:
Approve, Revoke
Logout of
SAP Portal
Benchmarking Through
Logon Simulation
Full Session Simulation
1

Migration (contd.)
Before
Migration
After
Migration
1
Logon Time Logon Time
HDX Bandwidth
Screen Refresh Latency Screen Refresh Latency
HDX Bandwidth

Migration (contd.)
1
Identify the exact step of the
logon process causing slowness
Gain insight into performance slowdown using
synthetic logon time breakdown

Synthetic Simulation vs. Real User Monitoring
• Measure user experience by
simulating user logon and session
access (active monitoring)
• Get measure of user experience
even when there is no real user
• Proactively detect issues before
end-users encounter them
Use a combination of both approaches
• Monitor real user connectivity
and interaction with Citrix
session (passive monitoring)
• Get real-time measures of actual
user experience
• Identify which users are affected,
where, when, and why
Real User Monitoring

Monitor All Aspects of Real User Experience2
Real User Logon Monitoring
Logon time breakdown
from the Delivery
Controller
Server-side and client-side
start-up duration from
XenApp Server
Isolate the exact GPO CSE that
is causing logon slowness

Monitor All Aspects of Real User Experience
(contd.)
2
Where is the Latency: Citrix Server or Client Network?
Compare metrics and identify
where the issue is:
server-side or client-side

(contd.)
2
ICA Channel Visibility Application Launch Time
Track time taken for every
application and process launch
Visibility into HDX channels and
breakdown by virtual channels
(audio/video/media/print)

(contd.)
2
Monitor EDT Performance (Citrix Adaptive Transport)
Monitor bandwidth, roundtrip
time, congestion, packet
retransmission for EDT sessions

Baseline Resource Usage Patterns for Every
Tier of the Citrix Site
3
• New Citrix components in 7.x
• New hypervisor, operating systems and server hardware
• Changed configurations and policy settings
Why baseline
resource usage
in XA/XD 7.x?
Automatically computed baselines
based on time of day, day of month
behavior enable proactive detection
of problems

Top Performance Challenges for Citrix Admins
1. Not able to pinpoint when underlying infrastructure
is affecting Citrix performance
2. Problem diagnosis is very slow and time-consuming
Citrix admins want to prove “it is not Citrix”
that is affecting performance
Multi-tiered and
heterogenous
infrastructures
Interdependencies
between various
components
Built-in Citrix tools
do not provide end-
to-end visibility
What are the reasons?

Understand Dependencies to Isolate
Infrastructure Issues Affecting Citrix
Root Cause: VMware
problem affecting Citrix
4

Analyze Capacity Needs and Right-Size the
XA/XD 7.x Infrastructure
Right-Sizing
Planning
Auditing
Optimization
• Analyze usage
patterns
• Load-balance
your IT
infrastructure
• Measure resource
utilization against
availability
• Get the most out
of your
infrastructure
• Predict when you
will run out of
resources
• Forecast future
requirements
• Make information
available for
audits
• Get reports for
regulatory
compliance
5

Analyze Capacity Needs and Right-Size the
XA/XD 7.x Infrastructure (contd.)
5
Answers key
questions about
usage: who, when,
how long, what?
Compliance & Audit
A few of the servers
are handling most of
the sessions
Capacity Optimization
Memory
bottleneck
preventing
addition of more
Desktops
Capacity Planning

5 Best Practices for Ensuring Post-Migration
Citrix Performance
Analyze capacity needs and right-size the 7.x infrastructure
Benchmark user experience before and after migration
Monitor all aspects of real user experience continuously
Baseline resource usage patterns for every tier of the Citrix site/farm
Understand dependencies to isolate infrastructure issues affecting
Citrix performance
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WHITE PAPERwww.eginnovations.com/Citrix-Migration-Best-Practices

5 Best Practices for Ensuring Post-Migration Citrix Performance

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5 Best Practices for Ensuring Post-Migration Citrix Performance