NetScaler Console service use cases

Citrix Aidan™ is your intelligent assistant designed to simplify and accelerate troubleshooting and environment analysis within your NetScaler infrastructure. Powered by deep integration with NetScaler infrastructure and telemetry, Citrix Aidan understands your environment contextually, allowing it to surface relevant data, assist with diagnostics, and guide you through resolution steps using natural language queries.

Whether you’re investigating upgrade readiness, vulnerability assessment or reviewing instance resource utilization, Citrix Aidan reduces the time spent navigating multiple consoles, correlating logs, and searching documentation by delivering insights directly within your workflow. Citrix Aidan is available in Citrix Cloud™ across NetScaler Console Service, making it a seamless part of your daily operations.

NetScaler Environment data

1. Software versions: Citrix Aidan can list the software versions and build numbers installed on your NetScaler appliances. Monitoring is critical for identifying and patching NetScaler instances with known security vulnerabilities, ensuring compatible and supported versions across all appliances, especially in standalone, High Availability (HA), and cluster deployments. Here are a few examples:

   • “How many of my NetScaler instances are running a build version earlier than 14.1-38.x?”
   • “Which specific build versions are currently deployed across my NetScaler environment?”

2. Health and Status: Monitor the operational status and health state (For example: Up, Down, out of service) of your NetScaler instances. This check provides immediate visibility for quick identification of issues, meeting SLAs, and initial troubleshooting. Here is an example:

   • “How many NetScaler are currently in a ‘Down’ or ‘Out of Service’ state?”

3. Deployment Modes: Understanding the deployment mode of the NetScaler instances (for example, Standalone, HA pair, Cluster) is fundamental for assessing redundancy, planning maintenance, understanding the traffic flow, gaining insight into the design, and scalability of your NetScaler infrastructure, and initial troubleshooting. Here are a few examples:

   • “Which of my NetScaler appliances are deployed in HA mode or as part of a Cluster?”
   • “Identify all NetScaler instances currently configured as the ‘Primary’ node within an HA pair.”

4. Enabled Features: Lists the specific features currently activated or configured on your NetScaler appliances (for example, Load Balancing, WAF, GSLB). This list provides insight into functional capabilities, resource consumption, licensing compliance, and security posture, providing verifiable proof of enabled security and performance features for compliance audits. Here are a few examples:

   • “What features are currently enabled on my NetScaler appliances?”
   • “Which NetScaler instances have the Web Application Firewall (WAF) feature actively configured?”
   • “List all instances where Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) is currently deployed.”

5. Health Metrics and Capacity Planning: Citrix Aidan provides visibility into real-time and historical performance data to assist with capacity management and resource optimization. Some metrics include CPU, Memory, Disk Usage, HTTP Req/sec, RX, TX, SSL cards and SSL Cores Up metrics. Here are a few examples:

   • “What’s the CPU usage of my top NetScaler instances?”
   • “Show HTTP request rate, throughput, and usage stats for instance 192.0.2.190.”
   • “Are SSL cards and network interfaces enabled and functioning?”
   • “Retrieve health statistics and usage data for my environment.”

6. Security Advisory and Vulnerability Management: Citrix Aidan integrates with NetScaler Console Security Advisory and CVE databases to identify, assess, and guide remediation of vulnerabilities affecting your NetScaler appliances. It can detect known CVEs applicable to deployed builds, provide remediation steps and references and highlight instances at risk due to outdated builds or configurations. Here are a few examples:

   • “Is my instance 192.0.2.16 vulnerable to known security issues?”
   • “List all NetScaler instances impacted by recent CVEs.”
   • “Show remediation guidance for identified vulnerabilities.”

Specialized use cases

Citrix Aidan goes beyond surface-level diagnostics by offering deep, contextual troubleshooting through special-purpose sub-agents. These agents are designed to extend Citrix Aidan’s intelligence beyond data retrieval to automation, validation, and guided execution.

NetScaler Upgrade Assistant

The NetScaler Upgrade Assistant is a specialized Citrix Aidan sub-agent designed to assist administrators with upgrade readiness and orchestration. Unlike contextual queries, this workflow uses dedicated upgrade utilities and validation tools to perform environment assessments and guided upgrade preparation.

Here’s how Citrix Aidan transforms these workflows:

1. Detects NetScaler instances running EOL/EOM or latest/non-recommended builds.
2. Maps build versions to known CVEs and recommends upgrade paths.
3. Performs pre-upgrade validation (checks customizations, configurations, dependencies, and health).
4. Identifies blocking issues with detailed resolution guidance.
5. Provides a readiness summary and directs users to initiate the upgrade from NetScaler Console.

Here is a summary of how the call flow works:

1. User requests for upgrade recommendations or readiness check.
2. Citrix Aidan invokes the Upgrade Assistant sub-agent.
3. The sub-agent evaluates build versions, security posture, configuration, and health.
4. Results are returned with actionable insights (ready/not ready, blocking issues, CVEs, recommended build).
5. Upon confirmation, the user is guided to proceed to the upgrade phase within the NetScaler Console service.

Here are a few example queries:

1. “Can you help me with upgrade recommendations for my NetScalers from 192.0.2.14”
2. “Which NetScalers are running on EOM builds?”
3. “I would like to proceed with 192.0.2.16 for the upgrade.”