Citrix Logon Simulator for XenApp and XenDesktop

Slow Logon Affects Citrix User Experience

For years, slow logons have been the most common complaint of Citrix users. In a recent Citrix survey conducted by DABCC and eG Innovations, 52% of Citrix administrators reported slow login as the top complaint they see coming from users.

For users that log into Citrix sessions, slow logon times can lead to frustration and lower productivity. To ensure great Citrix user experience, administrators must monitor the infrastructure proactively and be alerted to issues in advance, before users notice and complain.

Challenges

Collecting logon metrics for real user activity is challenging. There are dozens of steps involved in the Citrix logon process and they involve multiple components, such as Citrix StoreFront, Citrix Delivery Controller, Active Directory, Profile server, Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop, the Citrix data store, and more. Identifying exactly what is causing the slowdown can be time-consuming and laborious.

It is also a difficult to get a consistent assessment of logon performance because users each have different profiles and policies associated with them. Furthermore, there are times when no users are logging into the Citrix farm. It is important to know at all times if logon is working and whether users will be able to launch their applications and desktops successfully once they logon.

eG Enterprise Logon Simulator for Citrix

The eG Enterprise Logon Simulator for Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop is a purpose-built synthetic performance monitoring solution that provides complete visibility into the logon performance of Citrix infrastructures. An integral part of the eG Enterprise performance monitoring suite, the eG Enterprise Logon Simulator for Citrix simulates the exact same process that users execute for Citrix XenApp logon or XenDesktop logon. This tool uses an agentless approach to:

• Simulate a user logging in to a Citrix StoreFront or NetScaler gateway through a web browser
• Review the list of published applications/desktops
• Click on one or more of the selected applications or desktops
• Launch each of them sequentially by initiating a session via Citrix Receiver
• Wait until the application launches successfully
• And finally, log off from the session

Since every simulation tests the entire Citrix delivery infrastructure (NetScaler, StoreFront, Delivery Controller, XenApp Server, etc.). The results represent the cumulative health of all the tiers that support logon.

Features

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  Test the Entire Citrix Delivery Infrastructure

  Since the all tiers of the Citrix environment need to work in concert for the logon operation, simulating logon helps test the availability and readiness of entire Citrix delivery infrastructure. This is also helpful to test if any changes in the Citrix environment (upgrades, patches, configuration changes, etc.) have affected the logon experience. eG Enterprise Logon Simulator for Citrix supports XenApp 6.x and 7.x and XenDesktop 7.x infrastructures.

  Key Problems Identified
  Slow session logon Session disconnect after logon Authentication failure Application unavailability	Slow application enumeration Slow application launch Session not starting after logon

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• 

  Real-Time Citrix Logon Simulation 24x7

  The eG Enterprise Logon Simulator for Citrix allows administrators to test real Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop sessions for simulated users from local or remote endpoints:

  • Set up a recurrence for the simulation to test at regular intervals
  • Test from multiple endpoints across global and remote locations and compare performance
  • Test real-time logon availability and performance 24x7
  • Support multiple applications per user for logon simulation
  • Support multiple users from the same endpoint for logon simulation

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• 

  Detailed Diagnostics & Logon Analysis

  The eG Enterprise Logon Simulator for Citrix provides a host of vital metrics to monitor Citrix logon performance. The problematic step which causes slow logon is clearly highlighted, so administrators can triage the problem immediately. Intuitive dashboards, reports, and intelligent alerts provide full visibility into logon operations for faster issue diagnosis and resolution. Monitor key logon metrics, such as:

  Logon availability Logon duration Application enumeration availability Application enumeration duration

  Application launch availability Application launch duration Logoff duration, and more

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• 

  Real User Logon Monitoring with eG Enterprise

  • Complement logon simulation by monitoring real Citrix users as they logon to their Citrix infrastructure.
  • Identify the cause of slow logon by obtaining a breakdown of every step of the logon process—authentication, profile loading, GPO processing, etc.
  • Get actionable data to troubleshoot issues and optimize user experience.

  eG Enterprise helps pinpoint the cause of slowness, where the problem is, which users are experiencing issues, and whether it is a Citrix issue or a problem in the supporting infrastructure.

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Benefits

• Proactively detect and solve logon issues before end-users call up the helpdesk
• Benchmark your Citrix infrastructure: know if any changes (upgrades, patches, etc.) affect logon experience
• Improve business productivity by delivering fast and uninterrupted Citrix services
• Monitor both the real user logon experience and simulation results from a single console
• Simulated logon testing helps understand if all tiers in the Citrix environment are available and work as expected

Why eG? One Monitor to Manage All of IT.

• eG Enterprise is the only single pane-of-glass, virtualization-aware, auto-diagnostic IT infrastructure performance monitor
• Gain actionable answers to performance issues, wherever they originate, from application code to bare metal
• Understand the impact of infrastructure issues on application performance and user experience
• Unify IT performance monitoring, alerting, diagnosing, reporting, and capacity-planning in a single console
• Ensure a great user experience and dramatically improve IT efficiency
• Benefit from flexible deployment options (on-premises and SaaS) and IT monitoring approaches (agentless and agent-based)