Top American Airline Ensures Access to Citrix Virtual Apps with Application Availability Monitoring

Top American Airline Ensures Access to Citrix Virtual Apps with Application Availability Monitoring

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” hundred_percent_height=”no” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” status=”published” publish_date=”” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”2_3″ layout=”1_1″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_image_id=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_text columns=”” column_min_width=”” column_spacing=”” rule_style=”default” rule_size=”” rule_color=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””]

[fusion_imageframe image_id=”” max_width=”” style_type=”” blur=”” stylecolor=”” hover_type=”none” bordersize=”” bordercolor=”” borderradius=”” align=”right” lightbox=”no” gallery_id=”” lightbox_image=”” lightbox_image_id=”” alt=”” link=”/citrix-director-comparison/?utm_source=blog&utm_inline=banner&utm_campaign=website-CTAs&utm_content=gaat-airlines” linktarget=”_blank” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=””]Director vs Goliath Troubleshooting[/fusion_imageframe]In this post, we share a story about how one of the top 10 airlines utilized a new technology to solve an old problem: Proactively confirm that the Sabre Reservation System, accessed using Citrix, would be available when reservation specialists attempted to logon and schedule flights for customers. They selected the Goliath Application Availability Testing Service for Citrix.

Recently, Goliath received an inquiry from the Citrix Engineering Team at one of the top ten airlines in the world. The Citrix team was in dire need of a tool which would allow them to continually check remote connectivity and availability of their Citrix VDI infrastructure and the Sabre Reservation System and alert them before they were called by the business units who would usually contact them when reservation specialists were having logon issues can catch them flat-footed. So, they wanted to be able to avoid these calls and if they did happen, have the ability to say, “we know of the issue and were on it”.

The catch: No technology could be deployed on-premises.

Employing a large remote workforce of registration agents in multiple time zones was effective from a business standpoint allowing for greater flexibility in hiring and market coverage. However, it did not come without technical challenges, as these remote team members were experiencing issues when the Citrix desktops were intermittently not launching successfully.

The catch: No technology could be deployed on-premises.

Employing a large remote workforce of registration agents in multiple time zones was effective from a business standpoint allowing for greater flexibility in hiring and market coverage. However, it did not come without technical challenges, as these remote team members were experiencing issues when the Citrix desktops were intermittently not launching successfully.

IT needs to ensure an ‘Always On’ Citrix environment for 1,000+ remote end users

At approximately 1,000+ users who take reservations and VIP support calls, the airline’s remote work force is rather large. This team depends on Citrix for delivery of key applications in order to perform their duties on a daily basis, and availability of those resources needs to be available 24/7/365.

We introduced the Citrix Engineers to our application availability testing service, which doesn’t require any software on premise. The onboarding process was easy. A configuration link was sent to them where they entered the following information:

  • URL to connect to the Citrix environment
  • The Citrix account credentials
  • Application or desktop name to be tested
  • Email address for receiving real-time alerts from the Application Availability Service

Upon saving the information, the service was fully configured and ready to start the testing process.

As you can see below, the service was configured to test application availability from four different egress points in the United States, and one in Europe. Each was selected based on time zone and the largest clusters of remote employees.

[/fusion_text][fusion_imageframe image_id=”41714|800″ max_width=”” style_type=”” blur=”” stylecolor=”” hover_type=”none” bordersize=”” bordercolor=”” borderradius=”” align=”center” lightbox=”yes” gallery_id=”” lightbox_image=”” lightbox_image_id=”” alt=”” link=”” linktarget=”_self” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=””]https://goliathtechnologies.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/GAAT-Airlines-800×339.png[/fusion_imageframe][fusion_separator style_type=”none” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” sep_color=”” top_margin=”25″ bottom_margin=”” border_size=”” icon=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” width=”” alignment=”center” /][fusion_text columns=”” column_min_width=”” column_spacing=”” rule_style=”default” rule_size=”” rule_color=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””]

Test & Confirm Applications Will Launch in Real Time

Almost immediately, the Citrix team started seeing successful application and desktop launches in real time. They also started seeing that failures were occurring. In fact, after initiating the first test, the Citrix team began receiving email notifications of logon failures.

Here is an example of the real-time screen they were seeing:

[/fusion_text][fusion_imageframe image_id=”41715|full” max_width=”” style_type=”” blur=”” stylecolor=”” hover_type=”none” bordersize=”” bordercolor=”” borderradius=”” align=”center” lightbox=”no” gallery_id=”” lightbox_image=”” lightbox_image_id=”” alt=”” link=”” linktarget=”_self” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=””]https://goliathtechnologies.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Confirm-Logon-Slowness-e1550089903569.png[/fusion_imageframe][fusion_separator style_type=”none” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” sep_color=”” top_margin=”25″ bottom_margin=”” border_size=”” icon=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” width=”” alignment=”center” /][fusion_text columns=”” column_min_width=”” column_spacing=”” rule_style=”default” rule_size=”” rule_color=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””]

Upon receiving these alerts they were able to do what?

This data and information is also available in a historical report IT staff can analyze to make decisions and provide management with historical information.

The two images below are an example of logon failures displayed in this report. In the example here, the airline’s Citrix engineer used the data to confirm that a StoreFront server went down.

The report drilled down into the actual steps taken to get to the failure point. In a production environment, the appropriate support teams would have been alerted immediately when these failures occurred, giving them time to investigate the issue before receiving calls from their end users.

Finally, and as importantly, the reports gave them objective evidence that would validate whether or not they were meeting their Citrix Availability SLAs.

[/fusion_text][fusion_imageframe image_id=”41716|800″ max_width=”” style_type=”” blur=”” stylecolor=”” hover_type=”none” bordersize=”” bordercolor=”” borderradius=”” align=”center” lightbox=”yes” gallery_id=”” lightbox_image=”” lightbox_image_id=”” alt=”” link=”” linktarget=”_self” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=””]https://goliathtechnologies.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Historical-Simulation-Drilldown-800×422.png[/fusion_imageframe][fusion_separator style_type=”none” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” sep_color=”” top_margin=”25″ bottom_margin=”” border_size=”” icon=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” width=”” alignment=”center” /][fusion_imageframe image_id=”41717|800″ max_width=”” style_type=”” blur=”” stylecolor=”” hover_type=”none” bordersize=”” bordercolor=”” borderradius=”” align=”center” lightbox=”yes” gallery_id=”” lightbox_image=”” lightbox_image_id=”” alt=”” link=”” linktarget=”_self” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=””]https://goliathtechnologies.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Track-Simulation-Results-800×359.png[/fusion_imageframe][fusion_separator style_type=”none” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” sep_color=”” top_margin=”25″ bottom_margin=”” border_size=”” icon=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” width=”” alignment=”center” /][fusion_text columns=”” column_min_width=”” column_spacing=”” rule_style=”default” rule_size=”” rule_color=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””]

The Logon Success/Failure Analysis Report may be configured to run on a scheduled basis (daily, weekly, etc.) or as an on-demand report– just in time for those impromptu meetings management sometimes calls.

This Logon Report provides:

  • A direct output of any scheduled logon successes or failures for the time period specified when the report is generated
  • Full visibility to drill down into each of the logon availability tests to identify where a failure may have occurred

Logon Success/Failure Analysis Report will indicate if the:

  • Connection flowed through the NetScaler properly
  • StoreFront server isn’t responsive
  • Specific application or desktop was unable to launch

When this customer interaction ended, everyone was very satisfied. Together, and in less than two hours, we had solved a difficult challenge. The Goliath Application Availability Testing Service for Citrix provided them with peace of mind that they would “know first” if a reservation specialist was going to have issues.

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_3″ layout=”1_3″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_image_id=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” border_radius=”” box_shadow=”no” dimension_box_shadow=”” box_shadow_blur=”0″ box_shadow_spread=”0″ box_shadow_color=”” box_shadow_style=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_content_boxes layout=”icon-with-title” columns=”1″ title_size=”” heading_size=”2″ title_color=”” body_color=”” backgroundcolor=”” icon=”” iconflip=”” iconrotate=”” iconspin=”no” iconcolor=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_radius=”” circlecolor=”” circlebordersize=”” circlebordercolor=”” outercirclebordersize=”” outercirclebordercolor=”” icon_size=”” icon_hover_type=”” hover_accent_color=”” image=”” image_id=”” image_max_width=”” link_type=”” button_span=”” link_area=”” link_target=”” icon_align=”left” animation_type=”” animation_delay=”” animation_offset=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_content_box title=”” backgroundcolor=”” icon=”” iconflip=”” iconrotate=”” iconspin=”no” iconcolor=”” circlecolor=”” circlebordersize=”” circlebordercolor=”” outercirclebordersize=”” outercirclebordercolor=”” image=”” image_id=”” image_max_width=”” link=”” linktext=”Read More” link_target=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=””]

[gravityform id=”106″ title=”false”]

[/fusion_content_box][/fusion_content_boxes][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container][fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” hundred_percent_height=”no” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” status=”published” publish_date=”” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_image_id=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_imageframe image_id=”41465|1200″ max_width=”” style_type=”” blur=”” stylecolor=”” hover_type=”none” bordersize=”” bordercolor=”” borderradius=”” align=”center” lightbox=”no” gallery_id=”” lightbox_image=”” lightbox_image_id=”” alt=”” link=”/free-trial/goliath-application-availability-monitor-30-day-free-trial/?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=website-CTAs&utm_content=gaat-airlines” linktarget=”_blank” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=””]https://goliathtechnologies.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Free-Trial-CTA-v2.1-GAAM-1500×486-1200×389.png[/fusion_imageframe][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Law Firm With 5,000 Users Troubleshoots Citrix Latency Issues

Law Firm With 5,000 Users Troubleshoots Citrix Latency Issues

Previous
Next

How We Did It User Story: Law Firm With 5,000 Users Troubleshoots Citrix Latency Issues

In this post, the Goliath Support Team shares a story and troubleshooting workflow pertaining to a law firm with over 5,000 users. The law firm leveraged Goliath to troubleshoot Citrix and solve slow Citrix XenApp session issues by using the End-User Experience and HDX Latency Reports in Goliath Citrix Monitoring.

Problem: IT Operations lacked visibility into the end-user experience of 5,000 people in 30 offices  

Last week, I was working with a customer who is using Goliath for Citrix Monitoring and troubleshooting of their XenApp 7.6 environment. This law firm uses our technology to ensure their end users around the world have seamless access to their Citrix-delivered applications.

With 30 offices located worldwide and a Citrix XenApp environment of over 5,000 users, it was challenging for their IT Operations team to understand how many end users were experiencing poor performance, in what frequency and, most importantly, why.

By configuring our Citrix Monitoring and troubleshooting technology, the IT team was able to track and report on people who had poor Citrix end-user experience by using two reports that come out-of-the-box with Goliath’s Citrix Monitoring:

These reports are part of Goliath’s Citrix troubleshooting functionality and were scheduled to run on a daily and weekly basis and sent via email to the law firm’s Citrix Admins.

Step 1: Configure the End-User Experience Report & Schedule to Run Automatically for Citrix Troubleshooting

The first step in the process to understand the end-user experience was to bring in their Citrix XenApp 7.6 environment through our ‘First Time Run Wizard’ using our APIs for Citrix. Once the Citrix infrastructure was listed in the inventory, we deployed our Intelligent Agent.

The first report they configured was the End-User Experience Report, which is essential for Citrix troubleshooting. This report was scheduled to run every morning at 9:30 am so it landed in the Citrix Admins’ inbox first thing in the morning.

With the End-User Experience Report, the Citrix Admins could quickly determine if:

  1. An end user was experiencing Citrix session slowness (as indicated by HDX latency)
  2. The Citrix slowness was caused by a slow connection speed
  3. Citrix itself determined the connection to be slow and adjusted experience accordingly

The Citrix End-User Experience Report also provided information around the connection times and what application was used. So, instead of being caught off guard by calls from frustrated end users complaining about slow Citrix sessions, the administrator can be more proactive, anticipate the issues and, ultimately, prevent them altogether.

XAXD End User Experience Report

Step 2: Configure the HDX Latency Report & Troubleshoot Citrix End-User Experience Issues

The other Goliath report this law firm used was the Citrix HDX Latency Report. Citrix ICA latency is a key metric because when we look at performance and end-user experience problems, if there is a problem stemming from a server’s ability to process the user’s request or their connection, it will manifest in our Citrix troubleshooting functionality for Citrix HDX latency. 

This is the starting point for determining if the user’s poor experience issue is caused by something related to what they are doing or how they are connecting to the environment. In addition to scheduling the Citrix End-User Experience Report, the Citrix HDX Latency Report is also scheduled to run on a weekly basis and sent to the Citrix Admins.

Step 3: Set Threshold-Based Alerting for All End Users with Latency Higher than 300 Milliseconds

To enable proactive Citrix troubleshooting, the law firm configured the Citrix HDX Latency Report to show all users with a latency higher than 300 milliseconds, which is the threshold at which users begin noticing performance problems.

In multiple cases, the law firm identified network latency as being the cause of HDX latency for users from certain offices and used this report to forward the evidence (the report) onto the network team and management.

Citrix XenApp - ICA Latency Report

By using these reports in Goliath’s Citrix troubleshooting functionality, the Citrix Admins were able to quickly end the finger pointing between teams and provide objective evidence to management and the end users when performance complaints are reported.  The Citrix End-User Experience and HDX Latency Reports continue to be leveraged to maintain visibility to the Citrix end-user’s experience without depending on a phone call and to provide objective evidence when problems occur.

Tech Guide Upload Promotion

For more information on how Goliath Performance Monitor can help you and your team be proactive and anticipate, troubleshoot and prevent end user experience issues:

 

Send us an email: techinfo@goliathtechnologies.com

Give us a call: 855-465-4284

Schedule a Demo
Free Trial

About the Author: 

Ensuring Quality Outcomes by Reducing EHR System Downtime

Ensuring Quality Outcomes by Reducing EHR System Downtime

Previous
Next

Ensuring Quality Outcomes by Reducing EHR System Downtime

EHR implementations are typically a huge undertaking for healthcare organizations.  In some cases, deployments can take more than a year, and the cost implication is millions of dollars.  No small task of any kind, but when it comes down to monitoring sometimes only standard monitoring tools are deployed to reduce cost.  Today we will discover how healthcare organizations with a mindset of ensuring quality outcomes, will prevail and reduce EHR system downtime for the long-term.  More specifically we will be diving into a real-world story where the correct advanced monitoring and troubleshooting tool was not deployed right away, and the challenges that were faced as a result.

Design, Architect, and Deploy

A lot of preparation and testing goes into an EHR deployment.  In this real-world scenario a virtualized environment will need to be architected and deployed.  The preference in this case was to use a Citrix XenApp environment deployed on a VMware vSphere Hypervisor.

The task list was not small, here is a high-level overview:

  • Understand the business requirements and turn this into an equipment design
  • Architect, then order equipment, once received, then install
  • Network architecture and implementation
  • Hypervisor design and implementation
  • Citrix application design and install
  • Install applications, configure and test peripherals
  • Load testing
  • Adjust and realign and the scope gets modified
  • More load testing

Once all the preparation was completed it was time for the healthcare organization to start using the new system.

It’s Go-Live!

Even the best designs and architectures can experience the unforeseen.  As noted above, countless rounds of application testing, load testing and adjustment had occurred with this environment.  However, come go-live several things came to light.  At go-live, the system would function fine for several hours and then crash.  User sessions becoming hung, and the server the user was connected to would become completely useless.  Even with redundancy in place this wasn’t a viable workaround, because all systems would eventually crash and burn.   Keep in mind that this deployment the was deployed with native monitoring tools.

All hands-on Deck!

Every person involved in the architecture deployment now needed to assess their parts of the deployment with their independent monitoring tools, because there wasn’t one centralized one that could monitor everything.  It is challenging for these tools to see the true end user experience, which relies on multiple systems working together in concert.  Also, multiple support vendors were pulled into the conversation, because all teams were coming up empty handed with answers.  Troubleshooting this issue was a challenge, because of the dispersed collection of independent monitoring tools.

Troubleshooting went on for about 18 hours before it was discovered that there were some software bugs.  Two software patches had to be created to resolve the issue this environment was experiencing.  Woah, right!

Cost of a Downtime

Next consider the healthcare organization.  Fortunately, the old systems were still in place, so practitioners could use their old workflows until this was resolved.   If this had not been the case though the cost of downtime would have been very real.

Consider these statistics:

  • According to this article and the AC Group paper mentioned “Ten hours of electronic healthcare record (EHR) system downtime in a year could cost the average 20-physician practice nearly $100,000, yet 87% of medical practices ignore vendor service level agreements and uptime requirements when purchasing EHR system software.”
  •  According to Gartner, the average cost of IT downtime is $5,600 per minute. Because there are so many differences in how businesses operate, downtime, at the low end, can be as much as $140,000 per hour, $300,000 per hour on average, and as much as $540,000 per hour at the higher end.

Understanding the cost of a downtime for your enterprise is important to the success of your business.  Also, when proactive management and monitoring are in place a reduction in the risk of an actual major outage can be significantly reduced.

Goliath Technologies: The Health IT Standard

Now let’s look at how Goliath Technologies flips the paradigm by starting with the end user and understanding how the entire delivery infrastructure works together.  Goliath’s purpose-built EHR modules provide broad visibility to understand where a problem is coming from, and deep, detailed metrics to identify the true root cause of an issue.

 
 

As demonstrated here, the right toolset can broaden visibility across EHR performance, Citrix/VMware performance and EUE experience metrics that makes this work.   A CIO recently commented that the challenge of Healthcare IT is to deliver the systems an information required seamlessly, at the time care is provided … not 10 minutes later due to system issues.  Goliath reduces EHR system downtime which ensures quality patient outcomes.

 
 
 
 
Browse EHR Monitoring & Troubleshooting Webinars