Citrix Hypervisor (XenServer)
Overview
Applications Manager provides monitoring support and virtual machine management of your Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer) infrastructure with a comprehensive view into individual components. You can monitor Citrix Hypervisor host metrics, virtual machines metrics for your Citrix Hypervisor Host and capture XenMotion under Resource Pools for easier management of hosts and to detect performance problems.
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. Once the host is added, the virtual machines are auto-discovered. You can receive immediate notification with historical reporting of VM performance to enable the rapid diagnosis of problems in your virtual infrastructure.
Creating a new Citrix Hypervisor monitor
Supported versions: Citrix Hypervisor versions 8, 6.2, and 5.6
Prerequisites for monitoring Citrix Hypervisor metrics:Click here
Using the REST API to add a new Citrix Hypervisor monitor:Click here
Follow the steps given below to create a new Citrix Hypervisor monitor:
- Click on New Monitor link.
- Select Citrix Hypervisor under Virtualization category.
- Specify the Display Name of the Citrix Hypervisor.
- Enter the Host Name or IP Address of the host where the Citrix Hypervisor runs.
- Enter the Https Port where the Citrix Hypervisor web service runs. The default port is 443.
- Specify the Discovery Interval in minutes for the automatic discovery and monitoring of child monitors.
- Enter the credential details like user name and password for authentication, or select the required credentials from the Credential Manager list by enabling the Select from Credential list option. It should be the credentials of any Citrix Hypervisor Host user with admin privileges.
- Select the VM Discovery option based on which the virtual machines should be discovered and monitored. The available options are Do not discover, Discover VM but do not monitor metrics, and Discover and Monitor VM metrics.
For Discover VM but do not monitor metrics and Discover and Monitor VM metrics options, you can also specify the Discovery Filter Regex based on which the virtual machines are to be discovered and monitored. Learn more
- Specify the Polling Interval in minutes.
- Choose the Monitor Group with which you want to associate the Citrix Hypervisor to, from the combo box (optional). You can choose multiple groups to associate your monitor.
- Click Add Monitor(s). This discovers the Citrix Hypervisor from the network and starts monitoring it.
Citrix Hypervisor resource pool discovery
Applications Manager automatically discovers the slave Citrix Hypervisor Hosts under the Resource Pool when adding the Master Citrix Hypervisor Host. Once the Master host is added, the resource pool will be discovered and added as a monitor group. The user must provide the credentials for the slave Citrix Hypervisor Host and manage the Citrix Hypervisor Host to collect the performance metrics. Adding a Slave Citrix Hypervisor Host is equivalent to a standalone Citrix Hypervisor Host and Applications Manager will not determine the master and other slave Citrix Hypervisor Hosts. Read more about Citrix Hypervisor monitor and metrics monitored
Monitored Parameters
- Availability tab shows the availability history of Citrix Hypervisor for the past 24 hours or 30 days.
- Performance tab shows some key performance indicators of the Citrix Hypervisor such as Response time, Total CPU 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 lists all the Citrix Hypervisor servers monitored by Applications Manager along with their overall availability and health status. You can also perform bulk admin configurations from this view. Click on the individual servers listed to view detailed performance metrics.
- Top Citrix Hypervisor tab shows graphs for the top total CPU utilization consumers, top guest CPU utilization consumers, top memory consumers and top idle CPU utilization consumers.
Citrix Hypervisor Resource Pool discovery
Applications Manager automatically discovers virtual elements within the environment - including Resource Pools, physical hosts, and VM guests. The Resource Pool will be automatically discovered when the Master Citrix Hypervisor Host is added.
Once the Master Citrix Hypervisor host is added, the Resource Pool will be discovered and added as a monitor group. All the slave Citrix Hypervisor hosts under the resource rool will be discovered automatically and all the Citrix Hypervisor Hosts (both Master & Slaves) will be mapped to the Resource Pool.
Note:
The discovered slave Citrix Hypervisor hosts are added in 'UnManaged' state. To associate/dissociate any monitors to this Resource Pool, the user must provide the credentials for the Slave Citrix Hypervisor Host and change it to managed state. After providing the credentials, Applications Manager discovers the virtual machines under the slave Citrix Hypervisor Host and collects performance metrics.
The Resource Pool will have the separate details view which has the following list of information:
- Master Citrix Hypervisor Host and list of Slave Citrix Hypervisor Hosts.
- Pool Configuration details.
- VM and storage counts for all the hosts under the Resource Pool.
Click on the Resource Pool name under monitor groups to see the availability and health status of the pool, number of hosts, vms, storage and network.
The Summary tab displays Citrix Hypervisor host details like name, type, IP address, number of VMs, cpu core, cpu and memory percentage.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|
| Host Name | The name of Citrix Hypervisor monitor. |
| Type | Type of Citrix Hypervisor host (master or slave). |
| IP Address | IP Address of the host. |
| Number of VM | Total Number of VM's in the Citrix Hypervisor Host. |
| Number of CPU Core | Total Number of CPU Cores created in the Citrix Hypervisor Host. |
| CPU (%) | Average physical CPU usage (%). |
| Memory (%) | Average memory usage (%). |
The Pool Configuration Details tab displays high availability, WLB enabled, high availability overcommitted, virtual switch controller address, the number of VM's running, suspended, halted and paused.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|
| HA Enabled | Configuration property to enable high availability in Citrix Hypervisor. |
| WLB Enabled | Configuration property to enable Workload Balancing in Citrix Hypervisor. |
| HA OverCommitted | Configuration property stating whether pool resources are overcommitted. |
| Virtual Switch Controller Address | Pool Virtual Switch Controller Address Configuration. |
| Number of VM's Running | Number of virtual machines running in the Citrix Hypervisor host. |
| Number of VM's Suspended | Number of virtual machines in suspended state in the Citrix Hypervisor host. |
| Number of VM's Halted | Number of virtual machines halted in the Citrix Hypervisor host. |
| Number of VM's Paused | Number of virtual machines paused in the Citrix Hypervisor host. |
Click on the tabs listed below to view the corresponding metrics monitored:
Overview
This tab provides a high-level overview of the Citrix Hypervisor as well as its resource utilization.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|
| Availability and Performance History | Displays the availability and performance history for the last six hours. |
| CPU Utilization | The combined CPU utilization across the system(%). |
| Memory Utilization | Percentage of memory used across the system(%) |
| Virtual Machines |
| VM Name | Name of the virtual machines(VM) present in the host |
| Availability | Denotes the availability of the VM - available or not available |
| Power | Indicates whether the VM is running or not |
| CPU Utilization | The disk input/output utilization of this VM in percentage |
| Health | The health status(Clear, Warning, Critical) of this VM |
| Number of Virtual CPUs | Displays the total number of virtual CPUs. |
CPU
This tab provides metrics about CPU Utilization details of the cores.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|
| CPU Utilization of Cores |
| Core Name | The core name of the processor. |
| CPU Utilization | The CPU utilization of the CPU core over a period of time(in percentage). |
| Speed | The speed of the physical processor in Megahertz. |
| Model Name | The model name of the physical processor. |
| Family | The family (number) of the physical processor. |
| Model | The model number of the physical processor. |
| Stepping | The stepping of the physical processor. |
| Health | The overall health of the CPU core. |
Memory
This tab provides metrics about memory utilization of the Citrix Hypervisor.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|
| Memory Utilization |
| Overhead Memory | Memory overhead in MB on the Citrix Hypervisor Host. |
| Memory Available | The amount of available physical memory in MB. |
| Memory Usage | The amount of physical memory in use in MB. |
| Total Memory | The total physical memory in Citrix Hypervisor Host in MB. |
| Agent Memory Utilization |
| Memory Allocation | The allocation of the XAPI process in MB. |
| Memory Live | The live memory for the XAPI process in MB. |
| Memory Usage | The memory used by the XAPI process in MB. |
| Memory Free | The memory which is unutilized/ free for the XAPI process in MB. |
Storage
This tab displays metrics pertaining to the overall disk performance of the Citrix Hypervisor.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|
| Name | The name of the storage repository. |
| Description | The description of the storage repository. |
| Type | The type of the storage repository. |
| Content Type | The type of content in the storage repository. |
| Shared | Indicates whether this storage repository can be shared between multiple hosts. |
| Usage | The percentage of this storage repository that is in use. |
| Capacity | The total physical size of the repository in GB. |
| Virtual Allocation | The sum of virtual sizes of all virtual disk images in this storage repository in GB. |
Network
This tab provides metrics about network utilization.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|
| Network Utilization |
| Name | Name of the device |
| IP Address | IP address of this physical network interface |
| Mac Address | MAC address of this physical network interface. |
| Netmask | Netmask of this physical network interface. |
| Gateway | The IP address of the gateway of this physical network interface. |
| Speed | Indicates the metrics speed. |
| Data Received | The network traffic out, measured in KB/sec across all of the physical adapters of this Citrix Hypervisor host. |
| Data Transmitted | The network traffic in, measured in KB/sec across all of the physical adapters of this Citrix Hypervisor host. |
| Transmit Errors | Transmit errors per second on this physical network interface. |
| Received Errors | Received errors per second on this physical network interface. |
| Duplex | Indicates whether this device is duplex. |
| MTU | Maximum transmission units of the physical network interface. |
Configuration
This tab provides info on the Citrix Hypervisor's configuration details.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|
| HostName | The name of Citrix Hypervisor monitor. |
| Power | The power status of the server. |
| Version | The software product version of this Citrix Hypervisor host. |
| CPU Model | The model name of the physical processor. |
| CPU Capacity | The capacity of the physical processor. |
| CPU Vendor | The vendor of the physical processor. |
| Number of CPU Cores | Total Number of CPU Cores created in the Citrix Hypervisor Host. |
| Number of VM's | Total Number of VM's created in the Citrix Hypervisor Host. |
| Major Version | Major version number of the API of this host. |
| Minor Version | Minor version number of the API of this host. |
| Description | The description of this Citrix Hypervisor host. |
| Enabled | Indicates whether this Citrix Hypervisor host is enabled to run VMs. |
| Scheduler Policy | The scheduler policy currently enforced on this Citrix Hypervisor host. |
| License Expiry | The expiration date of the license for this Citrix Hypervisor host. |
