Citrix DaaS & Virtual Apps and Desktops extension

Latest Dynatrace
Extension
Published Oct 27, 2025

Gain insight into your Citrix DaaS & Virtual Apps and Desktops environments

1 of 4Citrix Overview Dashboard

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Overview

Monitor Citrix DaaS and CVAD with Python-powered extension for virtual apps and desktops visibility.

The all-in-one Citrix DaaS & Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops extensions allows you to monitor your Citrix environments. You can choose to have a holistic view of your Citrix site, monitor individual Virtual Delivery Agent (Citrix VDA) equipped machines, or both.

You can deploy the extension in four different modes, either locally, via OneAgent, or remotely, via ActiveGate.

Mode	Deployment	Description
Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA)	OneAgent	This mode captures Real User Monitoring data from the individual Virtual Delivery Agents (VDAs). Relevant Windows Performance Counters are also collected. You can monitor the individual user sessions by activating the extension on each Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA). Note that this mode will not collect environment-wide metrics, only real user monitoring (RUM) data for the individual sessions and perform counters.
Powershell SDK	OneAgent	This mode captures metrics about your entire Citrix Environment, including the Citrix Site, using the Citrix Powershell SDK. In this mode the extension runs from a single machine where Citrix Studio (or the Powershell SDK) is installed, usually where Citrix Studio is installed or directly on the Delivery Controller. We recommend using the newer Activegate remote options instead of Powershell SDK.
REST API (DaaS)	ActiveGate	You can connect to Citrix via the REST API and capture metrics about your entire Citrix Environment using the Citrix Rest API. The metrics collected in this mode are the same as in the Powershell SDK configuration, with the exception of licensing and Delivery Controller metrics which don't apply to Citrix DaaS sites.
Managed (On-premise)	ActiveGate	Connect to a local Delivery Controller of a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Citrix Site via the REST API.

Use cases

The use cases of the Citrix DaaS & Virtual Apps and Desktops extension depend on the deployment configuration you choose.

Monitor indivisual user sessions by monitoring Citrix VDAs.
Monitor your entire Citrix environment using the Citrix Powershell SDK.
Monitor your Citrix Environment using the Citrix Rest API.

Requirements

You must have an OneAgent deployed to each VDA.
Your Citrix VDA has the Citrix End User Experience Monitoring service enabled and running.
Your Citix VDA can be monitored by the extension.

To check if a certain VDA can be monitored by the extension
1. Start a ICA Session on the VDA via the Citrix Receiver (Desktop or individual Application works).
2. Run these powershell commands on the VDA:
  - Get-WmiObject -Class Citrix_Euem_RoundTrip -Namespace root\citrix\euem
  - Get-WmiObject -Class Citrix_Sessions -Namespace root\citrix\hdx
The VDA can be monitored by the extension if the commands return data about the user session.

The machine where the extension is running must have the Citrix Powershell SDK installed, this can be accomplished by installing Citrix Studio.

To test that a machine can run this mode, execute the commands below on powershell (as a user that can run Citrix Studio):

# replace localhost with the address of your delivery controller if necessary
Add-PSSnapin Citrix.*.Admin.V*
Get-BrokerSite -AdminAddress localhost

Your Linux or Windows Activegate can reach the following Citrix DaaS endpoints
- For US, EU or APAC: https://api.cloud.com
- For Japan: https://api.citrixcloud.jp
An API Client ID and Secret with Read Only Administrator scope.
You have the Citrix Customer ID. It can be obtained from the API Client creation or from the cloud console.

Compatibility information

Citrix DaaS (any version) or Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (formerly Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop) version 7.5+

Activation and setup

Install OneAgent on the Golden (or Master) Image.
Make sure to set the Host ID source, for example you can set it to fqdn.
Activate the Citrix Extension on that machine.

This will distribute the extension binary to that machine, making the deployment much faster later since the extension binary will be available on all VDAs created by this machine.
1. Create a new custom application.
  1. Navigate to Deploy Dynatrace > Monitor a custom application.
  2. Define your application.
    Give your application a descriptive name
    Choose an icon.
  3. Select Monitor custom application.
  4. Select Instrumentation wizard.
  5. Keep a note of the Application ID that is generated for your custom application.
2. Create a monitoring configuration
  1. Go to Infrastructure > Extensions > Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and select Create monitoring configuration.
  2. Define your monitoring configuration.
    
    Select which hosts you want to monitor. These are your Citrix VDAs.
    
    We recommend you make use of host groups, management zones**, or tags to make this easier to manage. For example all VDAs of a farm could have their own Host Group
    
    Monitoring Mode: Citrix VDA
    
    Custom Application ID The ID of the custom application you created in the previous step
    
    Capture User Data: whether to capture Usernames and IP Addresses or not

After a couple minutes, if ICA Sessions are running on these VDAs, you should see data being captured in the custom application you created.

Go to Infrastructure > Extensions > Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and select Create monitoring configuration.
Select the host you want the extension to run from. It's the one where the Powershell SDK is available.
Define your monitoring configuration.
- Monitoring Mode: Citrix Powershell SDK
- Username: A user that can run the Citrix powershell SDK commands; it can include a domain, for example: my.company\my.user
- Password: The password for the user
- Metric collection frequency: How often metrics should collect data

After a couple of minutes, metrics are ingested for your Citrix environment. You can use the built-in dashboard to access these metrics.

Go to Infrastructure > Extensions > Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and select Create monitoring configuration.
Select Monitor remotely and choose an Activegate group that is capable of reaching the DaaS endpoints; note that you can also configure a proxy later.

You can store the credentials either directly in the extension settings or via Dynatrace Credential Vault.

Metrics will arrive to your environment and can be seen in the overview dashboard. Note that

With Citrix DaaS you don't manage Delivery Controllers; these entities will not be created in Dynatrace.
The Site entity will not report the licensing metrics that don't apply to Citrix DaaS.

Details

Licensing and cost

The extension ingests Real User Monitoring data. Each Citrix ICA Session corresponds roughly to one Dynatrace user session, although ICA Sessions longer than 2 hours can be split into multiple user sessions.

The formula for the DDUs consumed is the sum of:

4 * <sites>
5 * <controllers>
11 * <groups>
5 * <catalogs>
9 * <desktops>

multiplied by 525.6 DDUS per year.

Example:

1 Site
1 Controller
20 Groups
12 Catalogs
160 Machines

Will consume: (4) + (5) + (11*20) + (5*12) + (9*160) * 525.6 = 908,762.4 DDUs per year.

DaaS has a similar fomula except it doesn't have metrics for the Delivery Controllers:

4 * <sites>
11 * <groups>
5 * <catalogs>
9 * <desktops>

Example:

1 Site
20 Groups
12 Catalogs
160 Machines

Will consume: ((4) + (11*20) + (5*12) + (9*160)) * 525.6 = 906,134.4 DDUs per year.

Feature sets

When activating your extension using monitoring configuration, you can limit monitoring to one of the feature sets. To work properly the extension has to collect at least one metric after the activation.

In highly segmented networks, feature sets can reflect the segments of your environment. Then, when you create a monitoring configuration, you can select a feature set and a corresponding ActiveGate group that can connect to this particular segment.

All metrics that aren't categorized into any feature set are considered to be the default and are always reported.

A metric inherits the feature set of a subgroup, which in turn inherits the feature set of a group. Also, the feature set defined on the metric level overrides the feature set defined on the subgroup level, which in turn overrides the feature set defined on the group level.

Metric name	Metric key	Description
Session State	citrix.broker_desktop.session_state	Valid values are null, Other, PreparingSession, Connected, Active, Disconnected, Reconnecting, NonBrokeredSession, and Unknown. Session properties are always null for multi-session machines.
Power State	citrix.broker_desktop.power_state	Gets machines with a specific power state. Valid values are Unmanaged (0), Unknown (1), Unavailable (2), Off (3), On (4), Suspended (5), TurningOn (6), TurningOff (7), Suspending (8), and Resuming (9).
Registration State	citrix.broker_desktop.registration_state	Gets machines in a specific registration state. Valid values are Unregistered (0), Initializing (1), Registered (2), and AgentError (3).
Summary State	citrix.broker_desktop.summary_state	Indicates the overall state of the desktop associated with the machine. The overall state is a result of other more specific states such as session state, registration state and power state. Possible values: Off (0), Unregistered (1), Available (2), Disconnected (3), InUse (4), Preparing (5).
In Maintenance Mode	citrix.broker_desktop.in_maintenance_mode	Denotes if the machine is in maintenance mode.
Sessions	citrix.broker_desktop.sessions	Count of number of sessions on the machine.
Fault State	citrix.broker_desktop.fault_state	Summary state of any current fault state of the machine. Can be one of the following: (0) None - No fault; machine is healthy. (1) FailedToStart - Last power-on operation for machine failed. (2) StuckOnBoot - Machine does not seem to have booted following power on. (3) Unregistered - Machine has failed to register within expected period, or its registration has been rejected. (4) MaxCapacity - Machine is reporting itself at maximum capacity.
Load Index	citrix.broker_desktop.load_index	Gives current effective load index for multi-session machines
Load Indexes "Gives the last reported individual load indexes that were used in the calculation of the LoadIndex value. Note that the LoadIndex value may have been subsequently adjusted due to session brokering operations. This value is only set for multi-session machines"	citrix.broker_desktop.load_indexes	—

Metric name	Metric key	Description
Desktops Available	citrix.broker_group.desktops_available	The number of machines in the delivery group in state Available; this is the number of machines with no sessions present.
Desktops Faulted	citrix.broker_group.desktops_faulted	The number of machines in the delivery group whose FaultState is not None.
Desktops Preparing	citrix.broker_group.desktops_preparing	The number of machines in the delivery group whose PvD disk image is being prepared.
Desktops Unregistered	citrix.broker_group.desktops_unregistered	The number of machines in the delivery group that are currently unregistered.
Desktops In Use	citrix.broker_group.desktops_in_use	The number of machines in the delivery group in state InUse; this is the number of machines with at least one session present.
Desktops Disconnected	citrix.broker_group.desktops_disconnected	The number of disconnected sessions present on machines in the delivery group.
Desktops Total	citrix.broker_group.total_desktops	Total number of machines in the delivery group.
Desktops Never Registered	citrix.broker_group.desktops_never_registered	The number of machines in the delivery group that have never registered with the current site
Sessions	citrix.broker_group.sessions	The total number of user sessions currently running on all of the machines in the delivery group.
Applications	citrix.broker_group.total_applications	Total number of applications associated with the delivery group.
Application Groups	citrix.broker_group.total_application_groups	Total number of application groups associated with the delivery group.

Metric name	Metric key	Description
Assigned	citrix.broker_catalog.assigned	The number of assigned machines (machines that have been assigned to a user/users or a client name/address).
Available	citrix.broker_catalog.available	The number of available machines (those not in any delivery group).
Available Unassigned	citrix.broker_catalog.available_unassigned	The number of available machines (those not in any delivery group) that are not assigned to users.
Unassigned	citrix.broker_catalog.unassigned	The number of unassigned machines (machines not assigned to users).
Used	citrix.broker_catalog.used	The number of machines in the catalog that are in a delivery group.

Metric name	Metric key	Description
Active Sessions	citrix.broker_site.licensed_sessions_active	The count of active licensed sessions
Unique Users	citrix.broker_site.total_unique_license_users	The total count of license users
License Model	citrix.broker_site.license_model	The licensing model in use. Values can be 0 - 'Concurrent' or 1 - 'UserDevice'
Broker Service Status	citrix.broker_site.service_status	Enables the status of the Broker Service on the controller to be determined. If the service has multiple data stores it will return the overall state as an aggregate of all the data store states. 1 - DBUnconfigured 2 - DBRejectedConnection 3 - InvalidDBConfigured 4 - DBNotFound 5 - DBMissingOptionalFeature 6 - DBMissingMandatoryFeature 7 - DBNewerVersionThanService 8 - DBOlderVersionThanService 9 - DBVersionChangeInProgress 10 - OK 11 - PendingFailure 12 - Failed 13 - Unknown

Metric name	Metric key	Description
VDAs Registered	citrix.broker_controller.desktops_registered	The number of VDA machines registered with the Broker service on the controller
Licensing Server State	citrix.broker_controller.licensing_server_state	The licensing server state currently in effect in the Broker service on the controller ServerNotSpecified (0), NotConnected (1), OK (2), LicenseNotInstalled (3), LicenseExpired (4), Incompatible (5), Failed (6)
State	citrix.broker_controller.state	The state of the Broker service on the controller (0) Failed, (1) Off, (2) On, (3) Active.
Licensing Server Last Event Time	citrix.broker_controller.last_licensing_server_time	Time at which the last significant licensing server event was reported
Active Services	citrix.broker_controller.active_services	The Broker site services active on the controller

FAQ and Troubleshooting

To obtain a detailed error log, create an Activegate Diagnosis.

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