Reporting and Monitoring a Citrix Infrastructure Q4 2007 Al Solorzano Practice Manager Application Delivery Infrastructure
Agenda The Current State of Reporting on Citrix Infrastructure Reports Application Performance Access Gateway (Standard and Advanced) Other Tools Q&A
The State of Reporting In a Citrix Environment
Challenges No Single Reporting product can report against all Citrix products Do you want to potentially pay to acquire or implement a reporting/monitoring solution? If so, how much? Each product has strengths and weaknesses Built-in to Presentation Server, Enterprise vs. requires an upgrade Presentation Server vs. a 3 rd Party Solution Product can e-mail reports, but does not have a Web based interface for managers Product allows for Custom Reports vs. another product that only allows reports from their interface Everyone has different requirements for their report criteria and delivery method Modifying the sort methods without recreating report Only search between 7AM-7PM M-F vs. Report on all hours Different requirements of the products Some require Microsoft database products (SQL Server, Analysis Services, Reporting Services) and others can utilize Oracle databases Some require agents vs. others that don t require agents
Reporting Tools Citrix Licensing Management Console Citrix Presentation Server Reporting Citrix Resource Manager Citrix Resource Manager Summary Databases Summary Database Reports Access Suite Console Web Interface for Resource Manager (http://www.jasonconger.com) Custom Reports with Crystal or Microsoft SQL Reporting Services Activity Tracking Manager (http://www.xtsinc.com/) Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager Citrix Presentation Server Reporting/Monitoring Citrix EdgeSight Microsoft System Center Operations Manager Numerous others (eginnovations, RTO, Premitech, etc)
Application Performance Reporting/Monitoring Citrix EdgeSight Activity Tracking Manager (http://www.xtsinc.com/) Numerous others (eginnovations, RTO, Premitech, etc) Reporting Tools (cont.) Web Interface with Secure Gateway/Access Gateway, Standard Reporting Analyze Center (http://www.thomaskoetzing.de/) Web Interface for Resource Manager (http://www.jasonconger.com/) Access Gateway, Advanced Reporting Event Log Consolidator/Event Logs Clear2View (http://www.clear2view.com) Access Gateway, Enterprise Built-In Only Other Tools
Find your requirements, Find your solution(s) Usage Who needs reports? Manager? Executives? Finance? How often will it be used? What needs to be reported or monitored? Type of Reports What reports are you looking for? Do you require Billing reports against Groups/Business Units? Can reports be automated/scheduled? Are reports executive ready? or can the look be customized? What formats need to be exported (PDF, XLS, HTML, etc)? Interface Will managers run their own reports from this interface? Does the interface need to be web based? How do you want reports delivered? Do you need to be able to perform customized reports? How granular does the product get?
Find your requirements, Find your solution(s) Product Requirements Do the product requirements require additional purchases or infrastructure to function? What do you want to report against? Does it also need to proactively monitor also? Does it require an Agent or not? Additional Features Does the product also monitor your environment? Can it perform Load/Stress Tests? Do you want Capacity Planning reports? How long can the data be reported against? Do you require Active Directory integration? How can you group/sort data? By group? By single user? By server? By Farm? By.exe? By group of applications?
Server Monitoring/Reporting Citrix Presentation Server (Enterprise Edition or above)
Citrix Licensing Management Console Licensing Web Site to display license usage and license counts. Web based tool with limited reporting capability. Cons No automation No way to determine who used licenses and for how long. Not intended for non-technical users.
Not enabled by default in the License Management Console with 4.0+ http://ctxex10.citrix.com/article/ctx106032
Citrix Resource Manager Graphical View of the last 4 days of data in the Management Console. Any PerfMon.exe stat can be monitored. Great for quick look of possible issues. Can be used to alert via the Watcher window, SMS messages, SNMP or E-mail. Cons No reporting capability. Overall view of farm, but no grouping of servers or grouping of users. Not intended for non-technical users. Limited to 4 days of data.
Citrix Resource Manager
Citrix Resource Manager Summary Database Current view or Snapshot of a point in time for a User, Process or Server from the Management Console. Requires a separate database (SQL or Oracle) to consolidate and summarize the Resource Manager data. Some basic billing/charge back capabilities. Cons You can only view data based on a per user, per process or per server basis. No automated reporting. No overall view of the farm, group of servers or group of users. Not intended for non-technical users.
Citrix Resource Manager Summary Database
Access Management Console 15 Reports that can be scheduled for multiple methods of delivery. E-mail, save to file share or web site Reports against the Resource Manager Summary Database. Limited Custom Reporting capability. Cons Only included reports work. No capability to add additional reports. Interface can be complicated to configure and use. Not intended for non-technical users.
Example Access Management Console Reports Application usage and availability Server usage and availability, including CPU and memory utilization reports and a server snapshot report (that can also be created from a real-time metric graph) Session statistics over time, including active and disconnected sessions Alerts that were generated in the farm Distribution of client types that connect to your servers Administrative policies in place for the farm Administrative changes made using the console
Custom Reports Custom reports can be created using Microsoft SQL Reporting Services or Crystal Reports to gather data against the RM Summary Database and render the report. Cons Detailed documentation does not exist on the content of tables, views and values in the RM Summary Database. Must have a SQL Reporting or Crystal expert on staff to create reports. At any time Citrix may change format of data or content requiring additional time and effort to modify reports. Depending on solutions, automation may be limited or not available at all.
Web Interface for Resource Manager Easy to use and navigate web site tool to interface into the RM Summary Database. Excellent troubleshooting tool to quickly determine the most common information needed. Highly recommended and should be in any Citrix Presentation Server, Enterprise environment Free Commonly referred to as the WIRM (pronounced worm ) Cons No support No guarantees on accuracy of data At any time Citrix may change format of data or content requiring a new version of the freeware tool. No automated reporting. No overall grouping of servers or grouping of users.
Web Interface for Resource Manager
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager Citrix Presentation Server plug-ins for Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager (SCOM). Topology of Citrix Presentation Server Infrastructure Health Alerts Monitoring and System Performance Cons Requires Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager if not currently implemented
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager State and Performance Monitoring Event Management Basic Service-Oriented Monitoring
Server & Application Performance Monitoring/Reporting Citrix EdgeSight http://www.citrix.com MSTerminalServices.org Readers Choice Award 2nd Place
Key Benefits of Citrix EdgeSight Addressing Performance Complaints Health and Availability Monitoring Proactively monitor user-experience and infrastructure Intelligent, early-warnings to potential issues Visibility to granular, real-time data Identifying Problem Source Problem Diagnostics Comprehensive data-capture at process-level Historical and real-time data presentation Full visibility to application, network, system context Optimizing the Infrastructure Trending and Analysis Comprehensive and continuous performance statistics Application and user-level utilization and resource consumption Group / Application / Time-based comparison reports
Alert Console Proactive view of alert conditions Configurable segmentation by Alert type Group or Department Device / User Interactive display allows zoom or scrolling of date/time range Click through to view alert details and obtain diagnostic data Health and Availability Monitoring
Health and Availability Monitoring Real-time Dashboard Overall health of PS and Endpoint environments Rapid identification of potential issues Flexible, easily configured architecture Devices and groups Selected performance metrics Desired threshold levels
Health and Availability Monitoring Expand or drill into detail on specific devices
Application Performance Monitoring Example Reports Device Summary Performance Summary for a Process
Additional Capabilities of Interest Quickly identify if Citrix is the culprit Most common complaint is Citrix is slow. What does slow mean? Slow network? Slow server? Slow Application? Slow in comparison to 5 minutes ago? 5 hours ago? 5 days ago? Subscribe or Publish Custom Reports E-mail automated reports Create a custom report and allow viewing of the report by everyone Drill-down capabilities Start at the overall environment view, identify anomalies in the environment and drill down to the problem areas Citrix EdgeSight for Load Testing 2.5 Separate product
Server & Application Performance Reporting Activity Tracking Manager http://www.xtsinc.com MSTerminalServices.org Readers Choice Award 3rd Place
Key Benefits of Activity Tracking Manager Customized Reporting Create reports based on your requirements Integrates with Active Directory for ease of use Report Automation and Delivery system Enterprise Management Reporting 50 Built-In Reports for Planning, Auditing and Managing of infrastructure resulting in improved budget controls Capacity Planning, Audits, Licensing Management, and Charge/Bill Back Reports Historical data presentation Measure IT Capabilities Complements existing monitoring systems Provides an interface that can be used by technical and nontechnical personnel Measurable IT Capabilities that can be used for budgetary purposes
Capacity Planning Analyze Future capacity of servers Effectively Plan for the future Provide Proof for needed expenses
Concurrency Reports Capacity Planning Daily peaks and valleys Application Licensing Server Concurrency User Group Concurrency
Audit Reports Perform application and user audits Generate audits for compliance and security Expand application usage information
Web Interface with Secure Gateway/Access Gateway, Standard Reporting
Analyze Center Modifies the Web Interface site to log connection information. Requires some modifications to get working in most environments with CSG and CAG implementations. Very basic reports (Who logged in, when, from where and what application did they launch) Free from : http://www.thomaskoetzing.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view &id=54&itemid=89 Cons At any time Citrix may change format of data or content requiring a new version of the freeware tool to be developed. Requires modification of Web Interface code, possibly voiding any support from Citrix.
Analyze Center Date and Time Username Client IP Applications Launched
Access Gateway, Advanced Reporting
Event Log Consolidator Event Logs CAG Advanced information is stored in CitrixAGE Audit Event Log (Very cryptic) Citrix writes Event Log Consolidator From the Access Suite Console, click on the CAG Adv Farm name, and click on the View Events log. Select File and then Collect. Consolidates Events by Session to more easily identify the resource or connection failure.
Key Benefits of Clear2view Reporting Harvest information from the Citrix Audit Logs on each server in your farm Enable customized reports using industry standard report tools Audit Usage Efficiency Record the applications launched via Citrix Presentation Server Only product with tight integration to Citrix technologies Automated reports Simple Licensing (per CCU of CAG, Adv)
Clear2View Takes the audit logs from all CAG, Advanced servers Consolidate Format Write to SQL Database Report against the database and export the report until multiple formats Automate the reporting process
Other Tools
eginnovations http://www.eginnovations.com/ Service Oriented Architecture reporting and monitoring with a centralized dashboard Map service oriented model for applications and perform root cause analysis Agents for VMware, Citrix, MS SQL, MS Exchange, Web Servers, WebLogic, Oracle and more MSTerminalServices.org Readers Choice Award 1 st Place
ADManager Plus http://www.admanagerplus.com/ Low Cost Active Directory Reporting Tool Last logon, disabled accounts, accounts with no password expiration set, group membership reports, computer reports and Exchange setting reports. SpiceWorks http://www.spiceworks.com/ Free Network Administrator Tool for small organizations Scan networks for devices, report on applications and services.
HP/Mercury Business Technology Optimization Software https://h10078.www1.hp.com/cda/hpms/display/main/hpms_hom e.jsp?zn=bto&cp=1_4011_100 Quest Software http://www.quest.com Lakeside Software http://www.lakesidesoftware.com/ Citrix s Resource Manager is a licensed package from Lakeside based on their older technology Premitech http://www.premitech.com/ RTO Pinpoint http://www.rtosoftware.com/
Conclusion
Conclusion There is no right solution for every environment. Perform due diligence and gather your requirements. Determine the skill of users who will be generating the reports.
Questions?
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