Recently, we introduced new features in Citrix Analytics for Performance that enhance visibility into infrastructure and the causes of poor user experience. These features include machine actions (basic and composite), which can help admins take key actions on machines like turn on/off maintenance mode, start, shutdown, restart, force-restart, force-shutdown, and more.

Part of Citrix Analytics for Performance’s machine statistics capabilities, machine actions, give admins an in-depth view into machines that are hosting sessions for users. With access to metrics such as failure insights and overloaded machines, admins can narrow down which machines need attention and take action immediately to fix a poor user experience.

In this blog post, we’ll look at how machine actions and machine statistics can help admins quickly resolve a poor user experience.

Once you identify users who are having a poor experience, you can narrow down the factors causing the problem. The image below shows a site with two overloaded machines that have high memory usage, leading to two users with poor experience.

You can click on the overloaded machines number to drill down for details on the machines causing the poor user experience. As the image below shows, you can see the two overloaded machines as well as details such as OS, memory usage, and CPU spikes during the period of time in question.

You can click on the individual machines to see the correlation between the resources and the session experience, as shown below.

As you can see, one session from this machine has fared poorly, and the performance can be correlated with high memory usage.

Now that we understand the impact these two machines have on user experience, the admin can put the machine into maintenance mode so no more sessions are served from it. Then, the admin can restart the machine or attempt to troubleshoot to free up memory.

Instead of having to leverage other consoles like Citrix Studio or Citrix Director, Citrix Analytics provides the ability to analyze, troubleshoot, and take action from a single location.

The images below show the list of actions admins can take on a machine and the confirmation screen, once an action is selected.

The admin can then view the status of the action they’ve taken.

Composite Actions

Admins also have access to composite actions functionality, which provides a one-click option to carry out the steps below, which are required as part of routine maintenance activity:

  1. Set the machine to maintenance mode so that no new connections are possible for that machine.
  2. Notify users who are already connected that this machine is in maintenance mode and will be restarted soon so that they can save their work and log off gracefully.
  3. Wait for the users to log off
  4. Log off the remaining users who have not logged off within 30 minutes of the notification.
  5. Restart/force restart the machine
  6. Remove the machine from maintenance mode and make it available for users.

The composite actions functionality is shown in the dashboard screen below.

Learn More

Machine actions, along with the other machine-related statistics and analysis tools available with Citrix Analytics for Performance, can help admins resolve poor user experience quickly, without manual intervention. Learn more about Citrix Analytics for Performance and the new machine actions feature.