How Does eG Enterprise Monitor Citrix Desktops?

eG Enterprise monitors the citrix desktops in an agentless manner.

Pre-Requisites for monitoring Citrix Desktops

The following list of pre-requisites should be fulfilled before you start monitoring the citrix desktops.

  • For internal monitoring of the individual citrix desktop, a light-weight eG VM Agent has to be installed on each of the citrix desktops. The steps for downloading and installing the VM agent are explained in Downloading and Installing eG VM Agent topic. The steps for downloading and installing the VM agent on macOS machines, Downloading and Installing eG VM Agent for Monitoring macOS Machines.

  • When monitoring the citrix desktops, the remote agent needs to be in the same subnet as that of the eG VM Agent or accessible on the local network of the eG VM Agent.

  • Ensure that the eG VM Agent communicates with the IP address of the remote agent directly and that the communication is not via a NAT or port forward. To know how does the eG VM agent pushes the performance metrics to the remote agent, refer the following section.

How does the eG VM Agent communicate with the eG Remote Agent?

An eG remote agent on a remote Windows/Linux host is used for monitoring. The remote agent does not initiate any communication with the eG VM Agent on the individual citrix desktop. This is because, this remote agent has no knowledge of the Citrix Desktop Group on which the citrix desktops are operating. Therefore, it can neither discover the IP address/host name of the Citrix Desktop Group, nor can it communicate with them to collect the 'inside view' metrics.

This is why, the eG VM Agent on a citrix desktop has been specifically engineered to initiate all communication. To establish this communication, the eG VM agent should first know which remote agent it needs to connect to and which Citrix Desktop Group it has to monitor. In order to feed this information to the eG VM agent, you can do one of the following:

  • Configure the eG VM Agent with the IP address of the eG remote agent and the nick name of the Citrix Desktop Group component it needs to monitor. This is the recommended approach.

  • Alternatively, you can configure the eG VM Agent with the IP address/port number of the eG manager with which it should communicate. If you choose this approach, then the eG VM agent will download the details of the remote agent and Citrix Desktop Group component from the eG manager itself. Take this route, only under the following circumstances:

    • If you be will changing the remote agent for a VM agent dynamically - i.e., using the eG manager itself, and/or;

    • If you want to auto-upgrade the eG VM Agent from the eG manager.

To know how to achieve the above, refer to theConfiguring the eG VM Agent to Communicate with the eG Manager/eG Remote Agenttopic.

Once the eG VM agent has all the information required for communicating with the eG remote agent, it does the following:

  • Collects 'inside view' metrics from the citrix desktop it is deployed on;

  • Caches the metrics locally;

  • Connects to the eG remote agent that has been assigned to the 'Citrix Desktop Group' component it monitors

  • Pushes the cached metrics to that remote agent via TCP; note that a TCP port has to be opened on the remote agent to facilitate this communication. If the remote agent is behind a firewall, then make sure that the firewall is configured to allow one-way communication from the eG VM agent to the remote agent.

Upon receipt of the 'inside view' metrics, the remote agent sends the metrics to the eG manager.

eG VM Agent and eG Remote Agent Communication

Figure 1 : How does the eG VM Agent communicate with the eG Remote Agent?