Citrix Workspace Monitoring



The evolution of cloud computing has transformed all aspects of the IT landscape – how applications are deployed, how data is consumed and stored, how security is managed, and so on. A recent Forbes survey reports that in the span of 15 months, about 80% of all IT funds will be committed to cloud solutions. Cloud adoption has also started in the end-user computing (EUC) world. From Citrix’s latest financial update, we can see that Citrix Cloud accounts for over 10% of their annual revenue and is growing at over 40% year on year.

Monitor End User Experience on Citrix Workspace. Then, pre-configured Citrix Monitoring rules are automatically applied and look for over 250 common failure points in the Citrix, Infrastructure, and Role Servers. Because of this embedded intelligence, you don’t have to be a Citrix expert to proactively anticipate, troubleshoot, resolve. Current support for High DPI endpoints is based entirely on the Citrix Receiver or Workspace App capabilities for a given platform. Citrix Receiver for Windows 4.10 (or greater) and Citrix Workspace App for Windows are the only DPI aware clients available currently.

32% of organizations are using virtual desktops or virtualized applications in the cloud, while 48% are considering this in the future.

  1. Citrix Workspace Monitoring Perfected with eG Enterprise 7.1 eG Innovations has partnered with Citrix to help you power a smarter, more flexible way to work. EG Innovations provides you performance analytics and actionable insights that can help diagnose the root cause of the problem for faster triage and service restoration.
  2. Monitoring the performance of Citrix Cloud services is challenging for several reasons: The Citrix Cloud architecture is distributed and involves several domains of control. There may be multiple administrators responsible for elements in the Resource Plane.
A survey by eG Innovations and DABCCCitrix Troubleshooting 101: Watch Webinar »

Citrix Cloud services offer a simple, fast, and flexible way of delivering digital workspaces. These are rendered as hybrid cloud services where Citrix provides cloud-based management while customers decide where workloads are located. In the hybrid deployment model, Citrix implements and manages the Citrix Delivery Controller, StoreFront, ADC Gateway, SQL Server, License Server, etc. This is called the Citrix Control Plane. On the other hand, the Citrix customer or service provider is required to implement the Virtual Apps and Desktop VDAs in their datacenters (or private/public cloud). The Citrix components in the datacenter are referred to as the Resource Plane. To enable connectivity between these two planes, one or more Citrix Cloud Connectors need to be installed (usually installed in pairs for HA) and managed in the resource plane.

A typical Citrix Cloud deployment

The Performance Monitoring Challenge: On-prem vs. Citrix Cloud

Monitoring the performance of Citrix Cloud services is challenging for several reasons:

  • The Citrix Cloud architecture is distributed and involves several domains of control. There may be multiple administrators responsible for elements in the Resource Plane. The Control Plane is hosted and managed by Citrix, and organizations do not have visibility into its operation and performance.
  • Some organizations may deploy the Resource Plane in a public cloud – AWS, Azure, etc. Performance of the public cloud can also affect the user experience.
  • Network connectivity between the Resource Plane and Control Plane is also important. Slowness in the inter-connecting network will affect the quality of Citrix services.
  • At the same time, end users are not aware of or interested in knowing the complexity of the Citrix Cloud architecture. They will still expect the performance of Citrix services to be on-par with that of physical apps and desktops.

Therefore, performance monitoring of Citrix Cloud is challenging, and when users complain about slowness, Citrix administrators have to be able to determine what is causing the problem – is it to do with the Citrix Resource Plane and its components, or the public cloud, or the Citrix Control Plane, or the network interconnecting the resource and control planes?

Requirements for Citrix Cloud Monitoring

From the above analysis, it is clear that the built-in tools from Citrix are not sufficient for monitoring Citrix Cloud environments effectively. Organizations deploying Citrix Cloud need to be able to:

Built-in Tools from Citrix: Do They Suffice for Citrix Cloud Monitoring?

There are several tools available for monitoring the availability and performance of Citrix Cloud services:

  • Citrix admins can check the Citrix Cloud portal – status.cloud.com. Citrix posts updates if they have known problems that are impacting their cloud services. Typically, only significant outages that are affecting many customers are reported here.
  • Citrix’s SLA for Citrix Cloud is based only on availability. So, if there are performance issues, they are mostly attended to reactively. Often customers must report issues to have them investigated.
  • As part of your Citrix Cloud subscription, you have access to Citrix Director in the cloud. This gives you insights into session usage, activity, logon times, and such. But you don’t get end-to-end insights to troubleshoot the cause of slowness – i.e., whether it is in your infrastructure, with a hypervisor or storage, with your PVS server, or with your network connectivity to the cloud, or in the cloud.
  • Finally, Citrix has just introduced Performance Analytics. This is mainly a way to easily interpret aggregate metrics collected by Citrix Director into a single metric that indicates if your users are happy or not. Analytics does not provide you any additional insights for troubleshooting performance issues. Plus, this is a paid tool that must be purchased additionally.
status.cloud.comCitrix DirectorCitrix Analytics
  • No performance SLAs: Only availability guaranteed
  • Monitoring is reactive: Issues are reported only when many customers are impacted
  • Performance issues need to be reported to Citrix support and wait for their response and resolution
Workspace
  • Mainly session-level data
  • No visibility into the infrastructure and cloud-connectivity issues
  • Limited root cause diagnosis
  • Limited historical data retention (only 90 days)
  • Focuses only on some UX metrics: logon, latency, failure, reconnects
  • Aggregates data across multiple sites
  • Licensed and priced separately
  • Limited historical data retention
  • Not very helpful for troubleshooting
Citrix

In summary, the built-in Citrix monitoring tools:

  • Lack the ability to monitor user experience end to end
  • Do not provide monitoring to all the Citrix and non-Citrix tiers of the Citrix Cloud service delivery chain
  • Force organizations to use several monitoring tools to troubleshoot performance issues
  • Do not provide the analytics that organizations need to right-size, optimize and plan their Citrix Cloud deployment

eG Enterprise: Enabling Four Best Practices for Citrix Cloud Monitoring

eG Enterprise addresses the performance monitoring needs of organizations that are deploying Citrix Cloud. Using eG Enterprise organizations can:

  • Measure the user experience of virtual apps/desktop service delivery: As with any cloud service, synthetic monitoring is important as it touches every tier of the service delivery chain. eG Enterprise has built-in synthetic monitoring tools to simulate user logons, application launch and application access in virtual apps/desktop sessions. Simulations can be set up from multiple locations to understand performance from each location. At the same time, through integration with Citrix Cloud APIs and using agents deployed in the Resource Plane, eG Enterprise collects real user experience data. Every user logon to the Citrix site, every application launch and the latencies seen by every user session are tracked, so administrators can be alerted to performance anomalies in advance.
  • Deep user logon drilldowns into Citrix Cloud Delivery Controller
  • Monitor every layer and every tier of the hybrid Citrix cloud infrastructure: Once you know that there is a performance issue, the immediate next question is what is causing it. And because of the distributed nature of the Citrix Cloud environment, Citrix admins need visibility of all components of the Citrix delivery stream – from the Control Plane to the Resource Plane and the Cloud Connectors in between. With eG Enterprise, Citrix admins get a single pane of glass to monitor all aspects of the Control Plane and the Resource Plane, as well as any public cloud infrastructure used and the interconnecting network’s performance.
  • Isolate the root cause of performance problems: When you get data from all the tiers, you will need help determining where the root cause of the problem is. By understanding the dependencies between tiers — i.e. between the Virtual Apps server and the underlying virtual machine and host, between the Cloud Delivery Controller and the Cloud Connector and so on — you will be able to pinpoint the potential root cause of performance bottlenecks. Using intuitive topology maps, eG Enterprise allows administrators to visualize interdependencies easily between the Control Plane, the Cloud Connector, components in the resource plane, and the supporting on-premises/cloud infrastructure for root cause diagnosis. An automatic root-cause diagnosis engine automatically analyzes performance anomalies in each tier and uses the dependency map to determine where the root-cause of a problem lies.
  • End-to-end topology of a Citrix Cloud environment
  • Get insights for performance optimization and cloud migration: Historical insight plays a vital role in performance management. There is lot to learn from data – trends, patterns, anomalies, bottlenecks, and so on. eG Enterprise provides Citrix admins the historical reports that provide actionable insight to optimize capacity on their Virtual Apps and Virtual Desktops servers and hypervisors. Historical reports also help perform migration assessments to compare KPIs pre- and post-migration.
  • Webinar: Is Citrix Cloud Enterprise Ready? How to Prepare for Your Cloud Migration »

    Share this:

    Top 10 concerns employees have about their privacy in the workplace

    1. Can my employer spy on my home computer through Citrix/Terminal/Remote Desktop sessions when I work from home?
    2. Can my employer see me at home via Citrix, Terminal and Remote Desktop sessions?
    3. Can my employer monitor my home computer or personal laptop?
    4. Can my employer spy on my personal phone?
    5. Can my employer spy on my personal phone or laptop when I am connected to the company’s WIFI?
    6. Can my employer see messages on my personal phone?
    7. Can my employer monitor my Citrix, Terminal and Remote Desktop sessions?
    8. Can my employer monitor my work computer?
    9. Can my employer monitor me via a built-in camera from a work computer?
    10. Can my employer monitor my private messages on work computers and remote desktop sessions?

    This article is put together by the WorkTime team of employee computer monitoring experts.

    In this article, you’ll learn:
    – The top 10 concerns employees raise about workplace surveillance.
    – How to monitor work computers and ensure that your employees feel confident about their privacy.

    Computer monitoring & productivity monitoring

    Employers have the right to monitor company-owned devices and employee productivity to protect business interests. Employee computer monitoring software is one of the most commonly used surveillance tools for this purpose. The employee monitoring software market offers an array of choices. However! Most of the software providers of this competitive market are focused on quantity and not quality. They want to add as many features to the software as possible without considering whether these functions are useful or not. Most of these ”extra” feature end up being too invasive or violating employee privacy. Besides, many of these features may not even be great for your monitoring goals.

    Before implementing employee monitoring software, it is essential to have clearly defined business goals.
    Also, steer clear of any monitoring software that offers spy-like functionality. A spy-like functionality is a feature that can record private information about your employees — for example, keystrokes or screenshots. If your monitoring goals include staying informed about the use of computers, software, and employee productivity, then none of the above-mentioned spy-like functions will achieve this.

    The main worry of employees

    Employees have a lot of questions about computer monitoring in the workplace. Yet, their privacy is the main concern. Employees are concerned about being secretly spied on. They’re also worried that something private will be recorded and revealed as a result of the monitoring. These concerns usually arise when it comes to video surveillance and monitoring of private devices.

    Non-invasive monitoring

    Pure productivity monitoring without going too far!

    WorkspaceTry now - it's free!

    So, what other top 10 concerns your employees have?

    Top 10 concerns employees have about their privacy in the workplace

    Here are the top 10 questions that employees have about their privacy at the workplace and answers to these questions:

    1. Can my employer spy on my home computer via Citrix/Terminal/Remote Desktop sessions when I work from home?

    A: NO, your employer cannot spy on your home computer through Citrix/Terminal Server sessions.
    Remote Desktop, Citrix, and Terminal server sessions are not designed to access your home computer.
    You do not need to worry about being spied on your personal computer via a remote desktop session.

    To monitor your home computer or a personal laptop, your employer has to obtain access. Remote desktop sessions do not grant any access without permission. Your employer is not allowed to monitor your home computer without your consent.

    2. Can my employer see me at home via Citrix, Terminal, and Remote Desktop sessions?

    A: NO, your employer cannot see you at home through the Citrix/Terminal Server or Remote Desktop sessions.
    The way this technology works, it is not possible in general.

    Non-invasive monitoring

    Citrix Workspace Va

    Pure productivity monitoring without going too far!

    Try now - it's free!

    3. Can my employer monitor my home computer or personal laptop?

    A: In general the answer is “NO”.
    This concern often arises when people work from home.
    To monitor your home computer or a personal laptop, your employer has to obtain access.
    Please refer to #1. The idea is the same.

    4. Can my employer spy on my personal phone?

    A: NO, your employer cannot spy on your personal phone.
    Your employer must request access to your personal phone to be able to monitor it.
    Also, your employer is not allowed to monitor your personal phone without your consent.

    Citrix Workspace Monitor Layout Dpi

    5. Can my employer spy on my personal phone or laptop when connected to the company’s WIFI?

    A: NO, your employer cannot spy on your personal phone or laptop even when using the company’s WIFI. Please refer to #3. The idea is the same.
    Your employer can track what websites you are visiting via the company’s WIFI (the URLs), not the content or passwords. Anyway, these days, data is usually encrypted using HTTPS and tls protocols.

    Non-invasive monitoring

    Citrix

    Pure productivity monitoring without going too far!

    Try now - it's free!

    6. Can my employer see messages on my personal phone?

    A: NO, your employer cannot see messages on your personal phone.
    Unless there is a video camera focused directly on your phone screen or your boss is watching over your shoulder. Remember, some people still rely on old monitoring ways. Otherwise, please refer to #4. The idea is the same.

    Citrix Workspace Monitoring

    7. Can my employer monitor my Citrix, Terminal, and Remote Desktop sessions?

    A: YES, your employer can and has the right to monitor your Citrix, Terminal, and Remote Desktop sessions.
    We mean to say, your employer can monitor what is going on within the session itself and not on the device where the session is executed.

    8. Can my employer monitor my work computer?

    A: YES, your employer is in a position and has the right to monitor the company-owned computers.
    Employers expect their employees to use computers provided by the company for work purposes and be productive during work hours. This is what employees are paid for.

    Non-invasive monitoring

    Pure productivity monitoring without going too far!

    Try now - it's free!

    9. Can my employer monitor me from a work computer through a built-in camera?

    A: YES, your employer can monitor you from a workplace computer through a built-in camera.
    To do this, special monitoring software has to be installed on your computer. Although this is not a common practice, some employers in the US do this. How do you find out if you’re being monitored with this little in-built camera? Just stick some chewing gum (or scotch tape) to your computer camera. If your employer doesn’t talk to you about how important it is to keep this ”little eye” clear, he’s probably not monitoring you.

    To employers: you can’t imagine what people do in front of their computers when they think nobody is watching! You just don’t want to see it.

    10. Can my employer monitor my private messages on work computers and in remote desktop sessions?

    A: YES, your employer can and has the right to monitor everything in the Citrix, Terminal, and Remote Desktop sessions and on work computers.
    Refer to #7. The idea is the same.

    How to keep your employees confident about their privacy?

    When it comes to implementing employee computer monitoring software, there is a comprehensive list of recommendations on managing employee monitoring in your workplace, ensuring a stress-free environment, and protecting employees’ privacy. (Get this free eBook from WorkTime to read more about it.) We also take pride in the fact that WorkTime is the only pure productivity monitoring software on the market. It offers non-invasive functions essential for monitoring computer, software, and internet use, as well as employee productivity.

    Monitor non-invasive with WorkTime!

    “Pure productivity monitoring!”

    Disclaimer

    The information provided in this article is for general understanding only and not to be taken as legal advice. For example, if your employer is the CIA, we cannot guarantee you anything. 30 display for mac. Additionally, please consult your lawyer to seek professional legal advice.