Instance management

Instances are Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) appliances that you can manage, monitor, and troubleshoot using Citrix ADM. Add instances to Citrix ADM to monitor them. Instances can be added when you set up Citrix ADM or later as well. After you add instances to Citrix ADM, they are continuously polled to collect information that can later be used to resolve issues or as reporting data.

Instances can be grouped as a static group or as a private IP-block. A static group of instances can be useful when you want to run specific tasks such as configuration jobs, and others. A private IP-block groups your instances based on their geographical locations.

Add an instance

You can add instances either while setting up the Citrix ADM server for the first time or later. To add instances, you must specify either the host name or IP address of each Citrix ADC instance, or a range of IP addresses.

To learn how to add an instance to Citrix ADM, see Add Instances to Citrix ADM.

When you add an instance to the Citrix ADM server, the server implicitly adds itself as a trap destination for the instance and collects an inventory of the instance. To learn more, see How Citrix ADM discovers instances.

After you’ve added an instance, you can delete it by navigating to Infrastructure > Instances and select the instance category. Then, select the instance you want to delete and click Remove.

How to use the instance dashboard

The per-instance dashboard in Citrix ADM displays data in a tabular and graphical format for the selected instance. Data collected from your instance during the polling process is displayed on the dashboard.

By default, every minute, managed instances are polled for data collection. Statistical information such as state, the HTTP requests per second, CPU usage, memory usage, and throughput are continuously collected using NITRO calls. As an administrator, you can view all this collected data on a single page, identify issues in the instance, and take immediate action to rectify them.

To view a specific instance’s dashboard, navigate to Infrastructure > Instances > Citrix ADC. On the Citrix ADC page, choose the instance type and then, select the instance you want to view and click Dashboard.

The following illustration provides an overview of the various data that is displayed on the per-instance dashboard:

• Overview. The overview tab displays the CPU and memory usage of the chosen instance. You can also view events generated by the instance and the throughput data. Instance-specific information such as the IP address, its hardware and LOM versions, the profile details, serial number, contact person, and others are also displayed here. By scrolling down further, the licensed features that are available on your chosen instance along with the modes configured on it. For more information, see Instance details.

• SSL dashboard. You can use the SSL tab on the per-instance dashboard to view or monitor the details of your chosen instance’s SSL certificates, SSL virtual servers, and SSL protocols. You can click the “numbers” in the graphs to display further details.

• Configuration Audit. You can use the configuration audit tab to view all the configuration changes that have occurred on your chosen instance. The Citrix ADC config saved status and Citrix ADC config drift charts on the dashboard display high-level details about configuration changes in saved against unsaved configurations.

• Network Functions. Using the network functions dashboard, you can monitor the state of the entities configured on your selected Citrix ADC instance. You can view graphs for your virtual servers that display data such as client connections, throughput, and server connections.

• Network usage. You can view network performance data for your selected instance on the network usage tab. You can display reports for an hour, a day, a week, or for a month. The timeline slider function can be used to customize the duration of the network reports being generated. By default, only eight reports are displayed, but you can click the “plus” icon at the bottom right-corner of the screen to add another performance report.