Applications - Cloud Test

With the Citrix Cloud, you provide users with access to information by publishing the following types of resources that can be virtualized on servers or desktops:

Applications installed on servers running Delivery Controller. When users access them, the published applications appear to be running locally on client devices.
Streamed applications installed in application profiles and stored on a file server in your App Hub. Users access the profile and virtualize the applications on their client desktops.
Data files such as Web pages, documents, media files, spreadsheets, and URLs.
The server desktops, so users can access all of the resources available on the server.

All these types of resources are called Published applications.

Whenever users to a virtual desktop complain that they are unable to access one/more published applications, administrators should be able to quickly troubleshoot and figure out the reason for this – is it because the application is disabled on the site? Or is it because the application is not even visible to users?

In addition, administrators should also be able to periodically check how popular an application is (in terms of usage) and accordingly reset its CPU priority level, so that such applications always command more CPU resources and users have no problems accessing or continuously using such applications.

The Applications - Cloud test enables users to perform these checks. This test points administrators to applications that are currently enabled on the site and those applications that are not visible to the users. In addition, this test reports the number of instances of an application that is currently running and the CPU priority level of each application, so that administrators can accurately isolate popular applications and their CPU priority level.

Target of the test : A Citrix Cloud Control Plane

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each published application

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed.
Host	The IP address of the host for which this test is to be configured.
Port	Refers to the port at which the specified host listens to.
Customer ID	When configuring the Citrix Cloud service, you should have created an API client on the cloud, so that any external program can communicate with the cloud. This API client is tied to a customer ID. The Citrix Cloud API requires this customer ID, when calling REST APIs. To determine the customer ID that is mapped to the API client you created, refer to Determining the Customer ID Mapped to an API Client.
Secure Client File Path	When creating the API client on the cloud, you will be provided with an ID and a Secret for your client. Downloading this information saves a file named secureclient.csv. The eG agent uses the ID and Secret stored in this file to connect to the Citrix Cloud API. This is why, you will have to configure the Citrix Cloud Connectivity test with the full path to the secureclient.csv. Note: Before specifying the path of the secureclient.csv file, make sure that the API client is created and this file downloaded by a valid Citrix cloud user with Read-only administrator rights to virtual apps/desktops. To know how to create this user on the cloud, refer to theCreating a New Citrix Cloud User for Monitoring PurposestopicTo know how this user can create an API client on the cloud, refer to Creating API Client on the Citrix Cloud.
Proxy Host and Proxy Port	If the Citrix Cloud Connector communicates with the Citrix Cloud via a proxy, then, you also need to configure the eG agent on the connector with the proxy server details. This will enable the eG agent to connect to the Citrix cloud without a glitch, and pull metrics. To facilitate this communication. do the following: Specify the IP address/fully-qualified host name of the proxy server, against PROXY HOST. Specify the port at which the Proxy server listens for requests from the eG agent, against PROXY PORT. By default, both these parameters are set to none, indicating that the eG agent does not communicate with the Citrix Cloud via a proxy. Note: Before configuring these test parameters, make sure that the proxy server settings are imported to the eG agent side from the connector. To know how to achieve this, refer to Configuring the eG Agent with Proxy Server Settings. To know what values you should configure these parameters with, do the following: Login to the system hosting the Citrix Cloud Connector being monitored. Open the Internet Explorer browser on that system, and click on the icon provided at the right corner of that browser. Clicking the icon will invoke a menu. Choose Internet Optionsfrom the menu. Then, select the Connections tab in the Internet Options window that appears. Now, click the LAN Settings button. This will open the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings window. In the Proxy Server section of this window, you will find that the Use a proxy server for your LAN check box is enabled. Configure the PROXY HOST and PROXY PORT parameters with the IP address and port numbers displayed in the Address and Port text boxes (respectively) under that check box. If the Use a proxy server for your LAN check box is not enabled, then it means that the connector is not communicating with the cloud via a proxy. In this case, you need not change the default configuration for these parameters.
Region Endpoint	By default, US is chosen from this list indicating that this test will report metrics for those organizations whose users and resources are located in the United States region. Sometimes, the eG agent may collect the required metrics with a minor time delay due to the users and resources being monitored are in a different region. To avoid such time delays and to ensure end-user proximity and offer the best user experience, administrators are allowed to change the region based on where most of the users and resources are located. For instance, if the users and resources are located in the Asia-Pacific South region or approximately nearer to the Asia-Pacific South region, then, administrators need to choose 'AP-S' from this list. However, from this list, administrators are required to choose only the region that they had chosen when they signed in for the first time after onboarding their organization to the target Citrix Cloud.
Detailed Diagnosis	To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option. The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled: The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement

Description

Measurement Unit

Interpretation

Is application enabled?

Indicates whether/not this application is enabled on the controller.

The values that this measure reports and their corresponding numeric values are:

Measure Value	Numeric Value
No	0
Yes	1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the values Yes or No while indicating whether the application is enabled or not. However, the graph of this measure will represent the same using the corresponding numeric equivalents of 0 and 1 only.

The detailed diagnosis of this measure if enabled, lists the name and type of the application, the location of the program file, the working directory and the tag applied to the application.

Is application visible to users?

Indicates whether/not this application is visible to the users.

The values that this measure reports and their corresponding numeric values are:

Measure Value	Numeric Value
No	0
Yes	1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the values Yes or No while indicating whether the application is available to users. However, the graph of this measure will represent the same using the corresponding numeric equivalents of 0 and 1 only.

Instances currently running

Indicates the number of instances of this application that are currently running.

Number

Comparing the value of this measure across all the applications will help you to identify the application that is most often used by the users.

The detailed diagnosis of this measure if enabled, lists the name of the application, the application type, the name of the catalog and delivery group to which the machine belongs, the zone to which the delivery group belongs, the machine ID, the user accessing the application, the client name and IP address, the protocol used for establishing the session, the start time of the session, the number of sessions – if the session is a Single session or a Multiple session etc.

CPU priority level

Indicates the priority level that is set for the resource usage of this application.

The values that this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are:

Measure Value	Numeric Value
Low	0
Below Normal	1
Normal	2
Above Normal	3
High	4

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above mentioned values while indicating the priority level with which the application has to be processed. However, the graph of this measure will represent the same using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

The detailed diagnosis of the Is application enabled? measure lists the name and type of the application, the location of the program file, the working directory and the tag applied to the application.

Figure 1 : The detailed diagnosis of the Is application enabled? measure

The detailed diagnosis of the Instances currently running measure lists the name of the application, the name of the application, the application type, the name of the catalog and delivery group to which the machine belongs to, the machine ID, the user accessing the application, the client name and IP address, the protocol used for establishing the session, the start time of the session, the number of sessions – if the session is a Single session or a Multiple session etc.

Figure 2 : The detailed diagnosis of the Instances currently running measure