Solutions Brief
Optimizing service
assurance for XenServer
virtual infrastructures
with Xangati
As IT organizations adopt application, desktop and server virtualization
solutions as the primary method for delivering services to its employees, they
face the challenge of a distributed virtual platform, where there are numerous
interconnected components which make up the resources used by end users.
How these are monitored in real time will determine the end user’s experience
and the IT admin’s ability to manage and fault find should problems arise.
Solutions Brief
2
Optimizing service assurance for XenServer virtual infrastructures with Xangati
XenServer is a type-one hypervisor platform, running on bare-metal
and optimized for XenApp and XenDesktop workloads. With tight
integration between it and the virtualized application and desktop
infrastructure layers, XenServer delivers a highly performing and scalable
platform with market leading features and the best end user experience.
This whitepaper provides an overview of how XenServer, partnered with Xangati’s product suites,
can assist IT organizations maintain service assurance for their virtualized infrastructure.
Key Benefits
Save money
• Improve the IT infrastructure
operational efficiency by making
better-informed IT purchase
decisions
Meet SLAs
• Perform multi-layer infrastructure
layer monitoring with root cause
analysis, predictive analytics, and
well-informed remediation advice
Increase productivity
• Improve the running efficiency of
your hosted virtual application and
desktop infrastructure
Mitigate risks
• Eliminate virtualized infrastructure
resource contention, such as from
‘noisy neighbors’
Faster time-to-resolution
• Leverage powerful, portable,
DVR-like recordings to speed the IT
helpdesk’s issue resolution
The service assurance challenge
Virtualized infrastructures have long proven their ability to provide significant infrastructure layer
CAPEX and OPEX benefits for today’s modern businesses. With this new world of abstraction and
resource sharing, these same businesses are challenged to meet service level agreements for their
application workloads and as such, require a more focused attention on how optimally the
infrastructure is operating and the availability of resources to it.
IT operations have the ultimate responsibility for service assurance, something that in the past was
met, barely, with a set of largely independent performance monitoring tools. Siloed infrastructure
components each with their own monitoring tools, required IT helpdesks to often collate and sort
through considerable quantities of disparate sets of data to carry out issue resolution.
IT administrators require a more flexible and efficient method to ensure predictable workload
performance for virtualized infrastructures, enabling them to meet SLAs and minimize disruptions
whilst maintaining a satisfying end-user experience and workload performance.
Performance analytics for XenServer
XenServer, based on the open source Xen hypervisor, is a highly scalable, type-one virtualization
platform designed to host hundreds of server, cloud and desktop workloads (virtual machines).
As a leading virtualization management platform, XenServer abstracts the underlying host server
hardware from the running workloads, enabling different vendors’ servers, storage and networking
adapters to be normalized. Combined with XenServer’s enhanced graphics capability, this hardware
normalization provides for a rich platform to support the higher infrastructure tiers in an application
and desktop virtualization scenario. This however, comes with a challenge in monitoring and service
analytics across the different virtualized infrastructure layers.
Xangati’s product suites offer a robust virtual infrastructure performance management platform
that works with application and desktop workload types, providing service assurance analytics for
all virtual infrastructures layers. Supplied as a self-installable virtual appliance, it maps and
automatically discovers all functional components within your Citrix infrastructure, including
XenServer, XenApp, XenDesktop and NetScaler and provides clarity about the IT infrastructure
health status from Day 1.
citrix.com
xangati.com
Solutions Brief
3
Optimizing service assurance for XenServer virtual infrastructures with Xangati
Xangati VI Suite
Xangati VDI Suite
Xangati VirtualApp Suite
Xangati WebApp Suite
Core analytics functionality for XenServer
The core of Xangati’s solution is a real-time, in-memory, cross-silo and time correlated metrics
engine, which collects data on a second-by-second basis. Xangati provides granular visibility across
datacenters and out to mobile devices without agents, yet with full awareness of users, applications
and services.
Predictive analytics, leveraging exclusive patented StormTracker technology, helps IT administrators to
mitigate risks by determining the root cause of resource contention storms and provide the necessary
steps to resolve bottlenecks and ensure the virtual infrastructure and workloads are optimized.
The Xangati VI Suite is able to monitor a range of XenServer resources, collecting metrics on the
hypervisor, VMs, open virtual switches (OVSs) and storage repositories (SRs), providing real-time
visualization and analysis.
XenServer Metrics
Host
VM
CPU (average
•
•
Memory (total/free/reclaimed
•
•
IO throughput (read/write)
•
•
IOPS (read/write)
•
•
Latency
•
•
OVS (NetFlow data)
•
VBD (Virtual Block Device)
•
Table 1. Xangati core analytics functionality
VI Suite can also track and monitor the use of storage appliances, such as NetApp and correlate
them to XenServer hosts, VMs and storage repositories, supplying a more detailed picture of
infrastructure resource usage.
citrix.com
xangati.com
Solutions Brief
4
Optimizing service assurance for XenServer virtual infrastructures with Xangati
With the additional Xangati VDI, VirtualApp and WebApp Suites, monitoring data from virtual
application and desktop infrastructures based on XenDesktop and XenApp can also be correlated,
providing real-time analysis of the performance and user experience of the XenApp and
XenDesktop resources.
Figure 1. Xangati’s multi-Citrix product support ranges across all aspects of the infrastructure.
Learn more
For further information on XenServer and the other Citrix products, please visit citrix.com/products.
Or contact a Citrix’s sales expert on 800 424 8749 (U.S. toll-free number) or other worldwide sales
numbers at citrix.com/contact/sales.
Further information regarding Xangati can be found at, www3.xangati.com/go/citrix, or contact the
sales organization at sales@xangati.com or 408-252-0505.
citrix.com
xangati.com
Solutions Brief
5
Optimizing service assurance for XenServer virtual infrastructures with Xangati
Corporate Headquarters
Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA
India Development Center
Bangalore, India
Latin America Headquarters
Coral Gables, FL, USA
Silicon Valley Headquarters
Santa Clara, CA, USA
Online Division Headquarters
Santa Barbara, CA, USA
UK Development Center
Chalfont, United Kingdom
EMEA Headquarters
Schaffhausen, Switzerland
Pacific Headquarters
Hong Kong, China
About Citrix
Citrix A A CTX is leading the transition to software defining the workplace uniting virtualization mobility management
networking and aa solutions to enable new ways for businesses and people to work better. Citrix solutions power business mobility
through secure mobile workspaces that provide people with instant access to apps desktops data and communications on any device
over any network and cloud. With annual revenue in
of . billion Citrix solutions are in use at more than
organizations
and by over
million users globally. earn more at www.citrix.com.
Copyright
Citrix ystems Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix et caler App elivery Controller et caler Xen erver XenApp
Xen esktop Tri cale and et caler X are trademarks of Citrix ystems Inc. and or one of its subsidiaries and may be registered in
the . . and other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.
About Xangati
Xangati is a ilicon Valley virtualization performance monitoring and service assurance analytics innovator providing performance metrics
visibility for complex virtualized data centers and hybrid cloud environments. Organizations such as Comcast ritish as Colliers arvard
niversity and the . . Army have leveraged Xangati to resolve end user issues more quickly optimize virtual applications diagnose root
causes of contention storms and assure overall infrastructure health. Xangati management dashboards built on patented in memory
architecture provide a live continuous and interactional view into the entire IT infrastructure with predictive analytics and prescriptive
remediation actions. To learn more about Xangati go to www.xangati.com www.twitter.com xangatipress or www.linkedin.com company
xangati.
Xangati All rights reserved
0915/PDF/10504
citrix.com
xangati.com