Compression - CCGC Test

Compression reduces bandwidth requirements and can significantly improve server responsiveness in bandwidth-constrained setups. The compression policies are associated with services bound to the virtual server. The policies determine whether a response can be compressed and send compressible content to the target connector, which compresses it and sends it to the client.

If you enable the Compression feature, the target connector intercepts requests from clients and determines whether the client can accept compressed content. After receiving the HTTP response from the server, the connector examines the content to determine whether it is compressible. If the content is compressible, the compresses it, modifies the response header to indicate the type of compression performed, and forwards the compressed content to the client.

The real test of the effectiveness of the compression feature lies in how much data is compressed and how much bandwidth is saved in the process. Besides the compression algorithm employed, when compression occurs and what type of data is compressed also influence how compression is performed and how beneficial it really is. Moreover, errors encountered when decompressing data also serve as factors impacting user-perception on compression and its usefulness. Using the Compression - CCGC test, administrators can accurately assess the effectiveness of the compression feature, keep a close watch on all factors influencing compression, and understand how these parameters can be fine-tuned to improve compression ratios and increase bandwidth savings.

Target of the test : A Citrix Cloud Gateway Connector

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : Once set of results for the Citrix Cloud Gateway Connector to be monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test

Parameter	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed.
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured.
Port	The port at which the connector listens. By default, this is 443.
Username and Password	To monitor a Citrix Cloud Gateway Connector, the eG agent should be configured with the credentials of a user with read-only privileges to the target connector. Specify the credentials of such a user in the Username and Password text boxes.
Confirm Password	Confirm the Password by retyping it here.
SSL	By default, the SSL flag is set to No indicating that the eG agent will communicate with the connector via HTTP by default. If the target connector is SSL-enabled, then set this flag to Yes to enable the eG agent to communicate with target connector via HTTPS.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Compression ratio	Indicates the ratio of the compressible data received from the server to the compressed data sent to the client.	Percent	Compression ratio depends on the types of files in the responses, but is always significant, noticeably reducing the amount of data transmitted over the network. The higher the compression ratio, the greater the bandwidth savings! This is why, a value close to 100% for this measure is indicative of a very effective compression mechanism, which is bound to result in significant savings in bandwidth usage. On the other hand, a very low value for this measure indicates that only a small amount of the compressible data has been successfully compressed, thus resulting in poor bandwidth savings.
Total compression ratio	Indicates the ratio of total data received to total data transmitted.	Percent	The value of this measure indicates what percentage of data has been compressed. A high value is hence desired for this measure.