Citrix Hypervisor Virtual Machines


The key performance metrics monitored by Applications Manager include those pertaining to CPU usage, memory usage, storage details, network utilization and configuration info at both the Citrix Hypervisor host and VM level. The solution also tracks attributes related to processes, guest OS, event log, etc. at the VM level.

Applications Manager also enables IT administrators to automate the provisioning of Citrix Hypervisor VMs based on threshold breaches. For example, Applications Manager can automatically start/stop/restart VMs in a Citrix Hypervisor farm when the number of active sessions in a Tomcat server or Oracle application server exceeds the specified threshold limit. This automation capability helps IT teams significantly reduce manual intervention and ensure their business-critical applications running in Citrix environments do not experience resource shortage.

  • Availability tab lists all the virtual machines present in the Citrix Hypervisors and their availability status. You can also view Availability history of the virtual machines for the past 24 hours or 30 days.
  • Performance tab shows some key performance indicators of the virtual machine including CPU Utilization, Memory Utilization, Disk I/O Utilization and Network Utilization along with heat charts for these attributes. This tab also shows the health status and events for the past 24 hours or 30 days.
  • List view tab displays all the virtual machines discovered under each Citrix Hypervisor. This view provides an overall idea of the availability and health of all the virtual machines. It also enables you to perform bulk admin configurations. Click on the individual virtual machines listed to view detailed VM metrics.
  • Top Virtual Machines tab shows graphs for the top CPU consumers, top memory consumers, top disk I/O consumers, and top network consumers of the Citrix Hypervisor. This section enables you to find out which virtual machines are consuming your server resources and take action accordingly.

Click on the individual monitors listed to view detailed performance metrics of the corresponding virtual machine. These metrics are categorized into 5 separate tabs for easy understanding. Below is an explanation of the metrics shown in these tabs:

Overview

This tab provides a high-level overview of the virtual machine as well as its resource utilization.

Parameter Description
Monitor Information
Name The name of the virtual machine
Type Denotes the type you are monitoring.
Health Denotes the health (Clear, Warning, Critical) status of the VM.
Last Polled at Specifies the time at which the last poll was performed.
Next Poll at Specifies the time at which the next poll is scheduled.
Availability Shows the current status of the VM - available or not available.
CPU Utilization
CPU Utilization The CPU Usage of the VM as percentage

Memory

This tab shows metrics about the memory utilization of the virtual machine

Parameter Description
Overhead Memory Amount of additional host memory allocated to the virtual machine in MB.
Target Memory The maximum memory which is allocated to the virtual machine.
Minimum Dynamic Memory The minimum dynamic allocation of memory to a VM from a pool of memory on the host.
Maximum Dynamic Memory The maximum dynamic allocation of memory to a VM from a pool of memory on the host.
Minimum Static Memory Specifies the minimum amount of static memory allocated to the virtual machine.
Maximum Static Memory Specifies the maximum amount of static memory allocated to the virtual machine.

Storage

Parameter Description
VBD (Virtual Block Device) Details
Name Name of this virtual block device.
Bootable Indicates whether this virtual block device is bootable.
Device Attached Indicates whether the device is attached or not.
Drive Empty Indicates whether this device is an empty drive.
Mode The mode the virtual block device must be mounted with.
Status Code Error/success code that is associated with last attach-operation.
Storage Level Lock Indicates whether a storage level lock was acquired.
VBD Type Indicates how the virtual block device appears to the guest.
Unpluggable Indicates whether this virtual block device supports hot-unplug.
VDI (Virtual Disk Image) Details
Name Name of the virtual disk image.
Description The description of the virtual disk image.
Location Displays the location information of the virtual disk image.
Managed Disk Indicates whether the virtual disk image is a managed disk image.
Missing Indicates whether the virtual disk image is present on disk.
Physical Utilization The physical utilization of this virtual disk image in GB.
Size Displays the size of the disk as presented to the guest in GB.
Read Only Indicates whether this disk can be mounted only as read-only.
Sharable Indicates whether this disk can be shared.
SR Name The name of the storage repository where the virtual disk image is located.

Network

The metrics in this category contain the VM network utilization details.

Parameter Description
Name Name of this virtual network interface.
MAC Address Ethernet MAC address of virtual interface, as exposed to guest.
Network The name of the virtual network to which this virtual network interface is connected.
IP Address IP Address of the virtual interface.
MTU Maximum transmission units of the virtual network interface in octets.
Active Indicates whether the device is attached.
Data Transmit Data transmitted on virtual interface in kilo bytes per second.
Data Received Data received on virtual interface in kilo bytes per second.
Transmit Errors Indicates the transmit errors per second on this virtual interface.
Received Errors Errors received per second on this virtual interface.
I/O Read The read bandwidth of the device in kilo bytes per second .
I/O Write The write bandwidth of the device in kilo bytes per second .

 

Configuration

Parameter Description
VM Name The name of the Virtual Machine.
Power Current power state of the VM.
OS Name Operating System of the VM.
Citrix Hypervisor HostName Displays the name of the Citrix Hypervisor host where the virtual machine is located.
HA Always Running Displays the status of the the virtual machine's HA(high availability). If this value is true, it indicates that the system will attempt to keep the VM running.
HA Restart Priority If ha_always_run is set, this describes the restart priority.
Description Any description of the VM.
Is Snapshot Indicates whether this virtual disk image is a snapshot.
Snapshot Name The name of the VM of which this is a snapshot.
Snapshot Creation Time Date/time when this snapshot was created.
User Version A user version number of this machine.
XenTool Status Indicates the Status of XenTools on the VM
XenTool Version Version Number of the XenTool.
XenTool Build Build Number of the XenTool.