30 Days of ADM: Day 19 October 21, 2022
Event handling and service integration
I am back, it is day 19.
I have talked about automation, the other part of automation is integration and event handling. ADM can see a lot of activity, so would it not be cool if you could build some custom actions on the back of that?
‘Yeah, we use Service NOW. Does ADM work with that?’
Of course, it does.
You have been selected for a training course in Citrix ADM, the goal is to provide you with enough information to be actually dangerous when talking to a customer or client. 30 days is a bit of an arbitrary number, but I am prepared to give you 2minutes of material, can I get 2 minutes of your time?
I have talked about Fleet management, general analytics, security analytics, AI / ML, Stylebooks, Pooled Capacity, instance advisory upgrade, security advisory, Autoscaling, onboarding, RESTful API, CADS self-managed, Service Graph, Web Transaction Analytics, Config Jobs, Network Reporting, SSL Dashboard and RBAC
Today is all about event handling.
Honestly, what are you talking about?
Something happens on a NetScaler, what would be useful to have happened as a result of that? Run a specific command, send an email, or post a message into slack?
Maybe you use Service NOW as it is a common framework for IT request and support system tickets. In this case, ADM can pass NetScaler-related issues into that ticketing system. That way your support teams can use one system.
Bang! The ticket was raised as x happened!
So what? What problem does it solve?
Having ADM see certain actions are handy, what is more, useful is to know what to do as a result of that. That way you can build out a framework of typical actions.
Configuring an event rule involves the following tasks:
· Define the rule
· Choose the severity of the event that the rule detects
· Specify the category of the event
· Specify Citrix ADC instances to which the rule applies
· Select failure objects
· Specify advanced filters
· Specify actions to be taken when the rule detects an event
For example one of the action is to pass the details to ServiceNow, you can automate the generation of ServiceNow incidents for the following:
· Any Citrix NetScaler events
· SSL Certificates that are about to expire
· The ADM license expiry events
Who would be interested in this?
Almost any customer uses NetScaler within their infrastructure. That’s everyone, right?
Let me have an example of its use.
Picture the scene, you have an environment running, and everything seems to be fine. You get an email alert to say that the hard disk on one of the NetScaler is reporting errors. It was not reporting this on the daily network checks carried out earlier that day.
You now can get on to support and have a replacement arranged in business hours.
There are a bunch of actions that can be taken as a result of an event, here is a screenshot with the options
Show me
There are two movies today. The first is actually Dave Potter talking about some WAF specific settings. Part of that walkthrough is an event action that he has trigger a pager.
Here is a short walk-through showing Service Now Integration.
Summary
Having ADM trigger an action based on an event is a superpower! It’s funny, that this lowly capability is not given more press!
Integrating with existing ticketing systems is a real bonus, as it allows you to not really need your admins to use another console unless they have something specific for it.
All of this will help you stay on top of your environment. With tools like this, you can save time and ensure that you get back to high-value tasks.
Ultimately, it is another killer feature that is enabled with ADM service.