Web Devices Test

Where multiple NetScaler appliances have been configured, administrators can use this test to understand whether/not request load is uniformly distributed across the appliances. Irregularities in load-balancing will thus come to light. In addition, this test also captures the bandwidth used by the web traffic to and from each appliance, thus leading administrators to those appliances that are consuming bandwidth excessively.

Target of the test : Citrix NetScaler Web Insight

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every NetScaler appliance configured in the target environment

Configurable parameters for the test
  1. Test period - How often should the test be executed. It is recommended that you set the test period to 5 minutes. This is because, the Nitro API using which the eG agent collects metrics from Web Insight, is capable of capturing only the performance data related to the last 5 minutes.
  2. Host - The host for which the test is to be configured.
  3. insight username, insight password, and confirm password -  To connect to Web Insight and collect the metrics it captures, the eG agent needs to be configured with the credentials of a user with read-only permissions to Web Insight. Type the name of this user against insight username and the password of this user against insight password. Then, confirm the password by retyping it in the confirm password text box.
  4. ssl – By default, Web Insight is not SSL-enabled. This is why, this flag is set to No by default. If it is SSL-enabled, then change this flag to Yes.
  5. 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.

  6. To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise suite 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

Hits:

Indicates the number of requests received by this appliance.

Number

This is a good indicator of the load on the appliance. 

Compare the value of this measure across appliances to know which NetScaler appliance is receiving the maximum number of requests. If a single NetScaler appears to be servicing a significantly large number of requests than the rest, it could imply that the NetScaler is overloaded. This in turn indicates that a faulty/ineffective load-balancing algorithm is in use.

Use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to know which the IP address of the NetScaler. 

Bandwidth:

Indicates the total amount of data received by this appliance.

KB

Compare the value of this measure across appliances to know which appliance is consuming bandwidth excessively.