The eG Enterprise Express Logon Simulator for Citrix, is a free cloud-based, on-demand service that delivers proactive visibility into the logon performance in Citrix infrastructures. This simulator emulates the exact same process that users go through when they logon to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, formerly XenApp and XenDesktop, and measures user experience during Citrix logon.

For years, slow Citrix logons have been the most common complaint in Citrix infrastructures. For a Citrix user, slow logons can lead to frustration, lower productivity and efficiency. For a Citrix administrator, Citrix logon slowness is a complex problem that takes a long time to resolve. Here are the reasons why:

• N-tier logon process makes root-cause isolation difficult: There are dozens of steps involved in the Citrix logon process and they involve multiple components - Citrix StoreFront, Citrix Delivery Controller, Active Directory, Profile server, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, the Citrix data store and so on. Identifying exactly what is causing the slowdown is often time consuming and laborious.
• Collection of logon metrics challenging: To ensure great Citrix user experience, administrators need to monitor their infrastructure proactively and be alerted to issues in advance, before users notice and complain. In order to do so, administrators need a consistent measure of Citrix logon performance - one that is available 24x7, even when there are no users accessing the farm. Collecting logon metrics of real user activity is challenging. Metrics have to be collected from the different tiers involved. Even then, it is difficult to get a consistent assessment of Citrix logon performance because different users have different profiles and policies associated with them. Furthermore, there will be times when no one is logging in to the Citrix farm, and at those times, it is important to know if Citrix logon is working and whether users can launch their applications and desktops successfully.

Using the metrics reported by this free simulator, Citrix users and administrators can:

• Receive a consistent, true picture of Citrix logon performance, whether or not users are logged into the Citrix farm;
• Proactively capture potential logon slowness;
• Monitor the logon process end-to-end, across the different tiers involved in the process, and accurately isolate where the process is bottlenecked;

If users to your Citrix delivery infrastructure are frequently complaining of slowness or failures when accessing their applications/desktops, and such complaints are impacting your bottomline, affecting productivity, and are a troubleshooting nightmare, you no longer have to wait for days to procure and setup a monitoring system that can ease your troubleshooting pains. With the eG Enterprise Express Logon Simulator for Citrix, you can have your monitoring system up, running, reporting metrics, and pinpointing delivery bottlenecks in no time, without investing even a dime on the hardware and resources required for configuring a full-fledged monitoring infrastructure.

Features

The salient features of the eG Enterprise Express Logon Simulator for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops are as follows:

Monitors the logon process end-to-end: Using a light-weight eG Logon Simulator Agent, the Express Logon Simulator drives the logon simulation. This agent, once downloaded from the web-based Logon Simulator portal and installed, emulates the process of a user logging into a Citrix farm and launching an application / desktop, end-to-end. This process is as follows:

1. The simulator first opens the Chrome browser and connects to the configured StoreFront/Citrix ADC, formerly NetScaler URL
2. It then logs in through the web browser and captures the time taken to login. The success/failure of the login is also determined.
3. The simulator next waits for the applications/desktops to be enumerated and records the time it took for the enumeration to complete. The success/failure of this step is also ascertained.
4. The configured application/desktop is then launched and the duration of the launch is recorded. In the process, the simulator also figures out whether/not the lauch was successful.
5. Finally, the simulator closes the application and logs out of the Citrix session. The log out status and duration is also captured.
6. Steps 1 to 5 are then repeated for every application/desktop that has been configured for launching.

Measures logon experience at every step of the logon process and pinpoints where the logon process is bottlenecked - at the time of client processing? Web URL access? authentication? application/desktop enumeration? during HDX session establishment? or application/desktop launch;

Provides a centralized console for displaying logon metrics: The simulator automatically reports the metrics to a cloud-hosted eG management server, which publishes the metrics on the Logon Simulator portal.

One-way communication: The communication between the simulator (i.e., the Logon Simulator Agent) and the eG management server is over the secure, web-basedHTTP/S protocol. The Logon Simulator Agent does not listen on any TCP port and initiates all communication to the eG management server; this minimizes the security risk to the systems hosting the agent.

Firewall-friendly architecture: Since all the communication is web-based, and since the agent initiates all communications to the manager, as long as users within your network can browse the web from the systems on which the agents are deployed, the agents will be able to communicate with the management server without needing any additional firewall configuration.

Monitoring support for multiple private networks: Since the Logon Simulator Agent initiates all the communications, it can even be installed on systems that are assigned private IP addresses, and on networks that are behind network address translation (NAT) devices. That is, you do not have to have your agents on the Internet to use this service - the agents can be in your Intranet.

Multi-tenancy support: Support for multi-tenancy is built in. Users receive personalized logins and they can monitor the logon performance of only their Citrix delivery infrastructure.

Does not carry business-sensitive information: This free simulator does not monitor business-related information (credit card information, etc.), and the information transmitted between the agent and the manager can be audited by the IT administrators at any time, using packet sniffers.

Secure, authenticated access: Your data is securely maintained and all accesses to the service are authenticated. You only have access to metrics, alerts, and reports from your infrastructure.