HDX Insight provides end-to-end visibility for HDX traffic to Virtual Apps and Desktops passing through Citrix ADC. It also enables administrators to view real-time client and network latency metrics, historical reports, End-to-end performance data, and troubleshoot performance issues.  Availability of both real-time and historical visibility data enables Citrix ADM (formerly NetScaler MAS) to support a wide variety of use cases.

Key Features and Capabilities of HDX Insight

1. Granular ICA Traffic Monitoring
2. Comprehensive Application Visibility and control
3. Efficient and Powerful Management tool to get actionable data
4. Avoids Expensive data collections, storage infrastructure, and Analytics tools

Deployment

HDX Insight key Functionalities

1. L7 Latency: HDX Insight supports reporting of end to end network latency both for the client and server networks
2. NSAP: HDX Insight supports light-weight high-performance reporting in later releases. Check https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2018/08/15/hdx-insight-2-0/  for further details
3. HDX insight + EDT : HDX Insight now supports reporting for EDT traffic. Check https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-gateway/12-1/hdx-enlightened-data-transport-support/configuring-citrix-gateway.html for how to configure Gateway for EDT support.
4. Smart Control: HDX Insight supports disablement of certain virtual channels through administrator controlled policies. Check https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/netscaler-gateway/12/integrate-web-interface-apps/smart-control.html  for further details
5. Outbound ICA proxy: HDX insight can be deployed in an environment where Receiver and Gateway are in different networks/organizations. Check https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/netscaler-gateway/12/outbound-ica-proxy-support.html  for further details

Architectural & Functionality Challenges with initial implementation

• CPU and Memory usage Issues during scale & performance test
• Dup Free and Memory Corruptions
• Session Reconnect and Termination logic
• Reconnecting Ticket Patching
• Session Reconnect failure on HA Failover
• Errors in Smart Control functionality

Architectural and Quality Improvements in 12.1

• Modularization of the protocol parser in HDX insight, to eliminate Dup free issues and Memory Corruptions.
• Implementation of Session Reconnect with HA failover
• Stability, Resilience and Fault Tolerance is improved with SR Reconnect
• Reliable Smart Control support
• More Receivers support is added (Windows/MAC/Linux/iOS/Android)
• NSAP functionality for better Scale (2.5x HDX Sessions) and lower CPU/Memory utilization.
• Enhancement of internal tools for testing SR, SR+HA, Scale/Performance.
• Support for HDX Insight + EDT
• Longevity is improved with scale and performance

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