SDX Uptime Test

In most production environments, it is essential to monitor the uptime of critical SDX appliances in the infrastructure.  By tracking the uptime of each of the appliances, administrators can determine what percentage of time an appliance has been up. Comparing this value with service level targets, administrators can determine the most trouble-prone areas of the infrastructure.

In some environments, administrators may schedule periodic reboots of their SDX appliances. By knowing that a specific appliance has been up for an unusually long time, an administrator may come to know that the scheduled reboot task is not working on an appliance.

This test monitors the uptime of critical SDX appliances.

Target of the test : Citrix ADC SDX

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every appliance being 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.

SDX Username and SDX Password

To monitor a ADC SDX device, the eG agent should be configured with the credentials of a user with read-only privileges to the target device. Specify the credentials of such a user in the SDX Username and SDX Password text boxes.

Confirm Password

Confirm the password by retyping it here.

SSL

The eG agent collects performance metrics by invoking NITRO (ADC Interface Through Restful interfaces and Objects) APIs on the target ADC SDX device. Typically, the NITRO APIs can be invoked through the HTTP or the HTTPS mode. By default, the eG agent invokes the NITRO APIs using the HTTPS mode. This is why, the SSL flag is set to Yes by default. If the target ADC SDX device is not SSL-enabled, then the NITRO APIs can be accessed through the HTTP mode only. In this case, set the SSL flag to No.

Report Manager Time

By default, this flag is set to Yes, indicating that, by default, the detailed diagnosis of this test, if enabled, will report the shutdown and reboot times of the SDX appliance in the manager’s time zone. If this flag is set to No, then the shutdown and reboot times are shown in the time zone of the system where the remote agent is running.

DD Frequency

Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against DD Frequency.

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

Has the SDX device been rebooted?

Indicates whether the SDX device has been rebooted during the last measurement period or not.

 

If this measure shows 1, it means that the device was rebooted during the last measurement period. By checking the time periods when this metric changes from 0 to 1, an administrator can determine the times when this device was rebooted. 

Uptime during the last measure period

Indicates the time period that the system has been up since the last time this test ran.

Seconds

If the device has not been rebooted during the last measurement period and the agent has been running continuously, this value will be equal to the measurement period. If the device was rebooted during the last measurement period, this value will be less than the measurement period of the test. For example, if the measurement period is 300 secs, and if the device was rebooted 120 secs back, this metric will report a value of 120 seconds.  The accuracy of this metric is dependent on the measurement period - the smaller the measurement period, greater the accuracy.

Total uptime of the SDX device

Indicates the total time that the device has been up since its last reboot.

 

This measure displays the number of years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds since the last reboot. Administrators may wish to be alerted if a device has been running without a reboot for a very long period. Setting a threshold for this metric allows administrators to determine such conditions.