eG Monitoring
 

Measures reported by IcaClientTest

A Citrix environment is a shared environment in which multiple users connect to a Citrix Presentation server from remote terminals using the ICA protocol. One of the key factors influencing user experience in such an environment is the latency seen by the users when connecting to the server. High network latencies or packet losses during transmission can cause significant slow-downs in request processing by the server. Hence, monitoring latencies between the server and individual client terminals is important.

The IcaClientTest is executed by the eG agent on a Citrix Presentation server. This test auto-discovers the users who are currently logged on to the server and the IP address from which they are connecting to the Citrix server. For each user, the test monitors the quality of the link between the client and the Citrix server. Using this test, an administrator can identify user sessions that are being impacted by high latencies or by excessive packet drops. In some cases, a Citrix server may regard a user session as active, even though the network link connecting the user terminal to the Citrix server has failed. The IcaClientTest alerts administrators to such situations.

Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation
No_of_sessions The current number of sessions for a particular user Number A value of 0 indicates that the user is not currently connected to the Citrix server.
Avg_delay Indicates the average delay between transmission of a request by the agent on a Citrix server and receipt of the response back from the user terminal. Secs Comparing the value of this measure across users will enable administrators to quickly and accurately identify users who are experiencing higher latency when connecting to a Citrix server.
Min_delay Indicates the minimum delay between transmission of a request by the agent on a Citrix server and receipt of the response back from the user terminal. Secs A significant increase in the minimum round-trip time is often a sure sign of a poor link between the server and a user's terminal.
Pkt_loss_pct Indicates the percentage of packets lost during data exchange between the Citrix server and the user terminal. Percent Comparing the value of this measure across users will enable administrators to quickly and accurately identify users who are experiencing slowdowns because of poor performance on the network links between their terminals and the Citrix server.

Note:

  • If the same user is connecting to the Citrix server from multiple client terminals, the value of the No_of_sessions, Avg_delay, and Pkt_loss_pct measures will be averaged across all the sessions of that user. The Min_delay measure, on the other hand, will display the least value reported for Min_delay across all the sessions of that user.
  • When a user logs out, the number of sessions will be reduced by 1. If the number of user sessions becomes 0, the corresponding entry for that user in the eG user interface will be removed after a short period of time.