Organizations are constantly expanding their existing on-premises infrastructure to meet growing demand. They need solutions that are flexible and scalable. The most economical solution to achieve this expansion is a hybrid environment — a combination of the on-premises environment along with a cloud solution like Microsoft Azure. This approach allows organizations to scale up or down with the additional freedom to decide if their applications must run on-premises or in the cloud based on the security, performance and availability requirements.
Typically, the expenses of running an organization are either capital (CapEx) or operational (OpEx). CapEx refers to costs incurred on major purchases of servers and other infrastructure, typically running into thousands of dollars. OpEx on the other hand is a smaller expense running into hundreds of dollars, incurred in running and maintaining infrastructure such as power, floor space, storage, etc. With a hybrid set up the organization, moves away from a traditional CapEx model (buy the hardware and depreciate it over time) to the OpEx model (use a shared cloud infrastructure and pay as you use it). The hybrid model combines the best of both CapEx and OpEx through shared resources.
Let’s consider the case of a hybrid environment where the user has deployed Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop on-premises and some or all the VDAs in the cloud (Azure). This set up facilitates high scalability and flexibility; the user can add or remove VDAs quickly as per requirements and available budget.
The Citrix SCOM Management Pack for XenApp and XenDesktop monitoring solution gives you insights into the availability and health of your XenApp and XenDesktop infrastructure regardless where the VDAs are deployed – on-premises or in the cloud. The virtual application and desktop infrastructure availability is checked with rigorous connectivity probing and active service checks. These checks are followed up with corrective actions to ensure that users are able to connect to their virtual desktops and applications.
The same deployment of the Citrix SCOM Management Pack for XenApp and XenDesktop that works on-premises, now can monitor the new hybrid environments — with Citrix SCOM Management Pack for XenApp and XenDesktop installed on-premises and the VDAs deployed either on-premises or on Azure. The prerequisite for this operation to work is a configured site-to-site VPN connection, such as the Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS).
Customers with existing or new XenApp & XenDesktop Platinum licenses can monitor the VDAs that are deployed on Azure using Citrix SCOM Management Pack for XenApp and XenDesktop. With a Platinum license, you can avail several benefits apart from the Citrix SCOM Management Packs. If you are not yet a XenApp and XenDesktop Platinum customer, be sure to check out the features.
Some important questions:
- Can the same deployment of Citrix SCOM Management Pack for XenApp and XenDesktop monitor VDAs deployed on Azure?
We have a great news for you. Yes, you can use the same deployment of Citrix SCOM Management Pack for XenApp and XenDesktop to monitor VDAs deployed in Azure. To do this, complete the configuration of the RAAS VPN connection as described here link. The monitoring functionality available for a VDA on cloud is identical to that of a VDA on-premises. This includes the sessions and ServerOS machine performance monitoring (CPU, MEM, latency).
- Do you require additional configuration on the SCOM environment?
No. No additional configuration is required on the SCOM environment to monitor VDAs in a hybrid environment.
- Does the Citrix SCOM Management Pack that supports monitoring of VDAs in Azure differ from the existing Citrix SCOM Management Packs?
The existing Citrix SCOM Management Packs can monitor VDAs on-premises and on cloud with the configuration of the RAAS VPN connection.
- Who can use Citrix SCOM Management Packs?
All the Citrix customers with XenApp and XenDesktop Platinum licenses can use Citrix SCOM Management Packs for XenApp and XenDesktop to monitor VDAs in a hybrid environment.
Figure: On-premises environment with VDAs deployed in Azure
For more information about extending your existing XenApp and XenDesktop deployment to Microsoft Azure, click here.
To install Citrix SCOM Management Pack for XenApp and XenDesktop, please refer to the product documentation..
For information about configuring RRAS VPN connection, see our Knowledge Base article.
We want to ensure that you can flawlessly monitor and manage your XenApp and XenDesktop infrastructure with Citrix SCOM Management Pack, independent of the diversity of your infrastructure – on-premises, in the cloud as well as hybrid environments.
If you have questions or comments, please use the comments section below to discuss.
