Citrix Cloud Connectivity Test

Unavailability of the Citrix Cloud service will deny users access to their critical applications/desktops. Slowness in accessing the cloud can have an adverse impact on the user experience with the cloud. To avoid this, administrators should periodically check the accessibility and the responsiveness of the cloud service, proactively detect potential anomalies, and immediately initiate measures to pre-empt such abnormalities. This is what the Citrix Cloud Connectivity test does.

This test connects to the Citrix Cloud service via a Java API client and in the process, reports the following:

  • Whether/not the cloud service is available;
  • How quickly is the cloud responding to requests

This way, the test points administrators to issues in connecting to the cloud.

Target of the test : A Citrix Cloud Connector

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the Citrix Cloud Connector 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.

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 the Creating a New Citrix Cloud User for Monitoring Purposes topic To 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 target 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.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Availability

Indicates whether/not the Citrix Cloud portal is available/accessible.

Percent

If the value of this measure is 100, it indicates that the cloud service is available. The value 0 denotes that the service is unavailable.

Response time

Indicates the time taken by the Citrix Cloud to respond to user requests.

Secs

A high value is a cause for concern, as it indicates that the Citrix Cloud service is responding slowly to requests. A low value is therefore desired for this measure.