How Zscaler Digital Experience (ZDX) Helps to See the Light at the End of the Data Tunnel – AVANTEC

About the job

If a song about a flickering lamp is playing on the radio or on the ski slope, whole crowds of people break out in enthusiasm. But if it is an internet connection or a connection to an important internal application that flickers, panic can quickly set in. Zscaler offers a tool with ZDX that provides important insights in such situations and can help analyse and identify connection problems. Previous articles on our blog already provide interesting insights into the functions of ZDX (What can Zscaler Digital Experience do) and how ZDX can be used for troubleshooting (A new "Swiss Army knife" is available – ZDX Zscaler Digital Experience). But what has changed since these posts? This article aims to provide a brief overview of what ZDX is and how its range of functions has changed since our last posts. What is EUEM and why do I need it? End user experience monitoring (EUEM) collects information about connections over their entire path. This enables a complete view of the actual user experience across different devices, networks and applications. In today’s world, where users connect to the required applications in increasingly diverse ways due to hybrid working and home office, EUEM offers a powerful way to keep an eye on the user experience and react to any changes before they become a widespread problem. How does ZDX fit into this? There are many tools for EUEM. But if a tool comes from the same hands as the infrastructure over which communication takes place, this enables a completely different level of visibility. And this is exactly where ZDX comes into play. The provided dashboards not only offer an easy way to see at a glance how the measured user experience looks on your own endpoints; if it is found that it is not at the desired level, ZDX provides a variety of tools and information to quickly and accurately narrow down the cause. A good starting point to become more familiar with the topic are also the blog posts mentioned at the beginning by my colleagues. How has ZDX developed? Zscaler continuously improves the existing functions and tirelessly adds new possibilities for monitoring the user experience. I would like to highlight some of these features below: Zscaler Hosted Probes Hosted Probes allow application accesses to be monitored via a specific data centre, even if no active clients are connected to it. The probes are hosted by Zscaler and thus enable continuous visibility of connection quality. Both Web and Cloud Path Probes are supported. Hosted Monitoring – X (formerly Twitter) – Probes in 6 locations over 30 days Especially when access to applications from different regions must be ensured, but there are no clients in these areas that allow continuous monitoring, such Hosted Probes can provide relief. Monitoring own applications Visibility, for example on SaaS applications, has been possible with ZDX from the start. However, the new feature is the ability to also monitor applications provided via ZPA. Top Private Applications – Top application on port 443 by number of users A search allows you to quickly find those applications that cause particularly high traffic or are used by many users. Using a configuration wizard, a web probe – optionally with an additional cloud path probe – can be set up directly. Alternatively, manual configuration of web and/or cloud path probes for private applications is also possible. This way, your own applications can be monitored in the same way as you are already used to with internet applications. Performance Dashboard – Internal application (via ZPA) over 2 hours Slight differences can be seen in the cloud path. When a private application is monitored, you have visibility of the entire path up to the actual application including specific information about the app connector used. Cloud Path – Internal application (via ZPA) over 2 hours ZDX can AI Almost every application is currently equipping a copilot. Zscaler also does not miss the chance to jump on this bandwagon with ZDX. The copilot functionality can be used in many ways. If you want to view information from ZDX but do not want to search for the right dashboard or table in the UI, you can simply ask the AI: Copilot – Page Fetch Time for Okta in the last 2 hours But even if you don’t know how to proceed with troubleshooting, the copilot can provide support. How was it again with troubleshooting WiFi issues? Copilot – How can WiFi issues be diagnosed? Basically, the ZDX platform thus offers a new kind of interaction. A step away from the classic structures towards a world in which an admin can simply put a complex question into words and receive a tailored answer with data from their own environment from the copilot. Where is the journey heading? The features I have shown here represent only a small part of the innovations and improvements in recent years. What is clear is that ZDX is here to stay. With strong monitoring capabilities for ZIA as well as ZPA and a wealth of features for collecting client information, ZDX has evolved from a tool for monitoring and troubleshooting proxy problems to a versatile tool that offers exciting possibilities for helpdesks. For my part, I am definitely curious about which new feature Zscaler will add to the product next. Links and bibliography What can Zscaler Digital Experience do? ZDX – Tec-Bite IT-Security Blog A new "Swiss Army knife" is available – ZDX Zscaler Digital Experience – Tec-Bite IT-Security Blog The article How Zscaler Digital Experience (ZDX) Helps to See the Light at the End of the Data Tunnel first appeared on Tec-Bite.