End-to-end Citrix infrastructure monitoring is possible using one of the most popular infrastructure health monitoring tools used by datacenter administrators: Microsoft System Center Operation Manager (SCOM).
This can be done thanks to the extensibility of SCOM and the Citrix-specific management pack technology that Citrix recently acquired from Comtrade. The new Citrix SCOM Management Bundle for XenApp and XenDesktop is now available for download for Platinum customers with active Subscription Advantage (SA) or Software Maintenance (SWM).
Citrix SCOM Management Packs let customers leverage their existing investment in Microsoft System Center for end-to-end monitoring of their entire Citrix infrastructure through a single pane of glass. The Platinum entitlement bundle includes management packs for XenApp and XenDesktop (for 7.x versions with FMA architecture), XenApp 6.x, XenServer, StoreFront, Web Interface, Provisioning Services, License Server, NetScaler and CloudBridge.
Seeing is believing!
What’s great about monitoring products is what you see is what you get. And with Citrix SCOM Management Packs, you get a lot, including alerting, health management and performance tracking—all from a single management console. Let’s quickly preview the high value these packs deliver:
1. Topology diagram
The Citrix topology diagram is the first page that you see with Citrix Management Packs. It’s common for datacenter IT teams to project this topology view on a large screen in the office so that anyone can look at it anytime. This view presents all of the Citrix components—which are automatically discovered by the packs—and shows health of each component with a simple tick, exclamation mark or red “X” icon depending on the status. Moreover, clicking on the “+” icon on each component lets you drill down further and view subcomponents within the same topology diagram.
2. Health Explorer
Health Explorer view is the place to start when an IT administrator wants to delve further into the health status of a component and perform troubleshooting. This view shows how the status of a component is rolled up under the state of the umbrella/parent component. It also shows a knowledge base article with details of the issue, what the possible causes might be and recommends possible resolutions. As you can see, SCOM management packs don’t just report an issue, but also provide a prescriptive commentary on what could be the next steps, making monitoring as actionable as possible.
3. Alerts
Alerts are important pieces of infrastructure health monitoring, because problems can arise anytime, and IT teams cannot always be looking at the monitoring solution. No one wants to be surprised by a disgruntled coworker calling to complain that their servers are down. Alerts in the SCOM management packs can be tuned for your environment and they can help ensure that IT administrators are up to date on the health of their datacenters.
4. Performance reports
Performance reports show historical trends for metrics around performance and usage. These can be used for troubleshooting as well as capacity planning.
5. SLA dashboards
Is your IT team juggling responsibility of multiple sites and/or multiple delivery groups? Or are you a service provider catering to multiple customers? If you answered yes to either question, you will love SLA dashboards. They help you monitor Quality-of-Service for each site or delivery group.
Download the Citrix SCOM Management Bundle Today!
We encourage all XenApp and XenDesktop Platinum customers leveraging SCOM to take advantage of these packs in their environment. Simply log into your Citrix account and select XenApp or XenDesktop from the product menu to access the latest Platinum edition and components. For further information, please refer to the Citrix SCOM management pack documentation.
Go Platinum to Get Citrix SCOM Management Packs and More!
The only way to get the new Citrix SCOM Management Bundle is through our XenApp and XenDesktop Platinum edition license. The value of Platinum goes far beyond this new entitlement. If you want to simplify the management and delivery of apps—and monitor and optimize app, desktop and user performance—you’ll want to upgrade to our most value-packed Platinum edition ever. Talk to your Citrix representative today about going Platinum.
