IT Service Provider, Terralogic, Reduces Citrix Related Support Tickets with Proactive Remediation
“We have reduced the total number of end user support tickets by leveraging Goliath to automatically remediate issues before end users are impacted.” – Mark Gigliotti, CIO of Terralogic.
Infrastructure: Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop, Citrix XenServer, Nutanix, RDS, vCenter
Challenge: Increase Client Satisfaction While Reducing Support Costs for Citrix Customers
Terralogic is a USA based software and IT services company with expertise in IoT, Cloud, DevOps, Citrix, App development, Cybersecurity and more. They turned to Goliath because their Citrix Architects were spending too much time troubleshooting basic end user issues around slow logons, applications failing to launch, and overall slow performance. They needed a solution that would not only reduce their time spent troubleshooting, but also avoid issues completely to increase end user satisfaction.
Mark Gigliotti, CIO of Terralogic, shares, “The free tools provided by Citrix do not provide enough insight to resolve end user issues quickly. My team needs end-to-end visibility that looks beyond Citrix into all IT elements that create the end user experience, such as VMs, storage, network, backend systems, and more.” He added, “We were also looking for a tool to prevent issues altogether and automatically alert our Service Desk team when issues arise, so they can be resolved before end users are impacted.”
Solution: Proactive Alerts Prevent End User Performance Issues
Terralogic selected Goliath Technologies due to its embedded intelligence and automation for monitoring and troubleshooting Citrix and the end user experience for their managed services customers. Goliath automatically discovers the entire Citrix delivery infrastructure, identifies what to monitor, the thresholds to set, and then alerts when thresholds are exceeded for all potential events, conditions, and failure points.
Results:
As a result of using Goliath, Terralogic has been able to reduce total number support tickets filed by their end users. Not only does this positively impact client satisfaction, but it also lowers cost.
“Prior to Goliath, we would wait for an end user to log a ticket and react. Now we proactively address issues before end users experience any slowness,” states Gigliotti. “Goliath has automated remediation which will automatically restart services or add memory if thresholds are hit. This not only avoids support tickets, but even eliminates any time being spent from our service desk team.”
Automatic Remediation Eliminates Printer Issues
Terralogic utilizes Goliath’s remediation engine, which will automatically restart a service or VM if an alert is fired off. Gigliotti comments, “Since having Goliath, we have eliminated all printer tickets.” If a print service is down, Goliath automatically identifies the issue and restarts the service. If the service is restarted more than 3 times in 15 minutes, the Service Desk is notified and will start investigating root cause.
Prevents Application Availability Issues before End Users Login
In addition, Terralogic uses Goliath’s Application Availability Monitor to continually test business applications and overall Citrix infrastructure availability (Image 1). Goliath’s application launcher initiates a real Citrix or RDS session from either their Dallas or Utah locations. The Application Launcher automatically logs on like a real user to confirm Citrix or RDS availability and launches applications. All aspects are configured exactly like a real user, with the same permission settings as in Active Directory. If an application or session won’t start or is slow, an alert is triggered to the Service Desk. Terralogic leverages 3 application launchers to test hundreds of applications across their clients’ infrastructure, firing new tests off every 4 minutes, 24/7.
“With Goliath, we are notified immediately if an application won’t launch. The data and screenshot evidence provided around when and where the launch failed enables our service desk to troubleshoot Citrix issues and resolve quickly,” shares Gigliotti. “In managing over 400 VMs and hundreds of applications, we don’t want to wait for an end user to complain. We need to be proactive in addressing issues to deliver excellent customer service to our clients.”
Image 1: Goliath’s main Application Availability Monitor’s console shows you:
- If an app launched and total time for the launch.
- Average launch time over a specified time period.
- Launch time broken down by stage.
- Ability to drill into individual session.
Image 2: When drilling into an end user session of a failed launch within Goliath, the analysis will identify where the issue occurred, screenshot evidence on the point of failure showing what an end user would see, and then log files isolating exact point of failure. This granular level of detail enables issues to be resolved quickly.
Gigliotti summarizes the overall value of Goliath by stating, “Goliath has transformed the way we service our clients, from reactive to proactive. We have reduced the number of support tickets filed, all while increasing our client satisfaction.”