NetScaler Console service use cases

NetScaler environment data

1. Software versions: Citrix Aidrien 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 Aidrien 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. SSL certificate health and SSL configuration visibility
   Citrix Aidrien provides deep visibility into SSL certificate inventory and SSL/TLS configuration across all managed NetScaler instances.
   This feature enables certificate lifecycle management, stronger security posture, and reduced risk of service disruptions caused by certificate expiration or weak cryptographic configurations.
   The capabilities include complete certificate inventory and usage across instances, instance bindings, expiry monitoring and risk indicators, expiring-soon alerts, risk-based visibility of certificates nearing expiration, centralized expiry tracking, cryptographic strength key size validation, signature algorithm identification, issuer visibility, detection of weak or deprecated cryptographic standards, SSL/TLS Configuration Assessment, SSL/TLS protocol usage, key-exchange (ephemeral RSA and Diffie-Hellman) visibility, SSL feature enablement across instances.
   Example prompts:
   • “Show all SSL certificates expiring within the next 30 days.”
   • “Which certificates are using SHA-1 signatures?”
   • "List the certificates on intsance 192.0.2.13 and show which are unused."
   • “Are any instances using deprecated SSL/TLS protocols?”
   • “Provide SSL key size and issuer details for my environment.”
   This use case helps administrators avoid outages, ensure compliance, and maintain strong encryption standards.
7. Network Functions — Virtual Server and Entity Visibility
   Citrix Aidrien exposes the operational state, configuration, and bindings of all major NetScaler network entities. Unlike appliance-level health checks, this capability resolves to the individual entity level — virtual servers, services, service groups, and servers — enabling application-specific triage, configuration audits, and cross-entity correlation across your entire NetScaler estate without navigating multiple consoles.
   The following entity groups are supported: Load Balancing (lbvserver, services, service groups, and servers), Content Switching (csvserver), NetScaler Gateway (vpnvserver), Authentication (authenticationvserver), Cache Redirection (crvserver), and Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB vServers, services, and sites).
   For each entity, Aidrien surfaces status, effective state, and bindings as the primary attributes.
   • Load Balancing
     Aidrien queries all load balancing virtual servers (lbvservers) across your estate and resolves their bound services, service groups, and backend servers in a single interaction. You can identify which virtual servers are degraded, trace a state problem to a specific backend server, and verify that the correct load balancing method and persistence policy are in place — without opening the NetScaler console.
     Example prompts:
     • "Which lbvservers across my estate are not in an UP state?"
     • "Show me all services and service groups bound to vs_app_443 on 192.0.2.16 and their individual states."
     • "Which lbvservers have all their bound services Down?"
     • "What servers back service group svcgrp_app on 192.0.2.16, and are they all UP?"
     • "What load balancing method and persistence policy is configured on vs_internal_8080?"
   • Content Switching
     Citrix Aidrien retrieves the full policy binding configuration for all content switching virtual servers (csvservers), including the priority order of bound policies, their target lbvservers, and the default backend when no policy matches. This lets you quickly understand traffic routing decisions and detect misrouting caused by a degraded target lbvserver.
     Example prompts:
     • "Show all csvservers on instance 192.0.2.16 and their current states."
     • "What policies are bound to cs_www_443 and which lbvservers do they target?"
     • "Are there any csvservers where the default or a policy-target lbvserver is currently Down?"
     • "What is the default backend for cs_api_gateway if no content switching policy matches?"
   • NetScaler Gateway
     Citrix Aidrien surfaces the state, effective state, and configuration of all NetScaler Gateway virtual servers (vpnvservers) across your estate. You can identify which Gateway entry points are unavailable, and which instances have an active Gateway vServer configured, giving you immediate visibility into remote access availability without instance-by-instance inspection.
     Example prompts:
     • "Which Gateway vServers across my estate are currently Down?"
     • "Show me all NetScaler Gateway virtual servers on instance 192.0.2.20 and their states."
     • "How many instances have an active Gateway vServer configured?"
     • "Is vpn_gateway_443 on 192.0.2.16 UP and what is its effective state?"
   • Authentication Virtual Servers
     Citrix Aidrien enumerates all authentication virtual servers (authenticationvservers) across your NetScaler estate and reports their operational state. This is particularly useful for identifying authentication bottlenecks or outages affecting single sign-on flows, without separately querying each managed instance.
     Example prompts:
     • "List all authentication vServers across my estate and their current states."
     • "Which authentication vServers on instance 192.0.2.16 are not UP?"
     • "Show me the configuration and state of authvserver auth_aaa_443."
   • Cache Redirection
     Citrix Aidrien reports the state and target bindings for all cache redirection virtual servers (crvservers) across your estate. You can determine which crvservers are degraded and identify the origin or target lbvserver associated with a given cache redirection configuration.
     Example prompts:
     • "Show all cache redirection vServers on instance 192.0.2.16."
     • "Which crvservers across my estate are currently not in an UP state?"
     • "What origin server is bound to crvserver cr_web_80?"
   • Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB)
     Citrix Aidrien surfaces the operational state of all GSLB virtual servers, their bound GSLB services, and the configured GSLB sites across your estate. You can detect site-level failures, identify GSLB vServers that are Down, and verify whether all participating sites are reachable — enabling rapid diagnosis of global traffic disruptions without manually checking each participating instance.
     Example prompts:
     • "Which GSLB vServers across my estate are currently Down?"
     • "Show all GSLB services bound to gslb_app_www and their site states."
     • "What GSLB sites are configured on instance 192.0.2.16 and are they all UP?"
     • "Which instances have GSLB configured and how many GSLB vServers are active?"
     • "Is the AP-South GSLB site reachable from instance 192.0.2.16?"

Specialized use cases

Security Scan History (CVE, Secure Configuration, File Integrity, IoC)

• Fresh: Completed and not overdue.
• Stale: The next scheduled scan is overdue.
• Incomplete: Some instances weren't covered, for example because they were down or unreachable.
• Not run: No completed whole-estate scan of that type in the last 14 days, which is as far back as the scan history goes. Scans run on specific instances aren't counted here, so a type can be shown as not run even after a recent scan of selected instances.

• Indicator of Compromise (IoC) scans are tracked separately:
• Latest run: Its status (scheduled, in progress, completed or error), when it ran and, for on-demand scans, who started it.
• Per-instance verdict: Whether each instance shows a potential compromise, with the specific checks that flagged it.
• Detection definitions: The version of the IoC detection script, so you know how current they are.

• "When did the last CVE scan run on my NetScaler estate, and when is the next one due?"
• "Are my secure configuration and file integrity results up to date?"
• "Show me the latest scan status for CVE, Secure Config, and FIM."
• "When was the last IoC scan run, and did it find any potential compromise?"
• "Was 192.0.2.16 included in the latest IoC scan?"
• "Which version of the IoC detection script is my Console using?"

Contextual dashboard intelligence (“Analyze with Citrix Aidrien”)

• Instance Inventory Dashboard
  • Analyze the health stats, features enabled, and security advisory details of a specific NetScaler/Citrix ADC instance selected.
  • Select an instance and click “Analyze with Citrix Aidrien” to get the instance advisory.
  
• Security Dashboard
  • Analyze the security recommendations and CVE exposure summary for all or specific NetScaler instances.
  • Select an instance and click “Analyze with Citrix Aidrien” to get security advisory for the selected instance.
  • Click “Analyze with Citrix Aidrien” without selecting an instance to get the security advisory for all NetScaler instances.
  
• Upgrade Advisory Dashboard
  • Analyze the NetScaler inventory, CVE remediation mapping, readiness summary, upgrade path, and upgrade scheduling.
  • Click Plan with Citrix Aidrien to get the upgrade advisory for all NetScaler instances.