Contents

NetScaler Platforms and editions

Website Visitors:

Netscaler is available in either a hardware or software based appliance.

  • Hardware options, MPX and SDX include single and multi-tenant devices, in addition to FIPS compliant and high SSL throughput appliances.
  • Software-based options, VPX and CPX include virtual hypervisor-based and containerized microservice offerings.

MPX: Available in burst packs and pay-as-you go grow options. Supports more than 4.5 gbps of ssl throughput. It is federal information processing standard compliant. Hardware-based application delivery appliances with a performance upto 500 Mbps–200 Gbps.

BEST FOR

  • Managing web applications with multiple gigabits of traffic
  • Load balancing for small enterprises
  • Ultra-high performance web application security
  • Flex tenancy

SDX: high-density consolidated platform that combines xen based virtualization and netscaler mpx architecture. Runas as many as 115 netscaler instances simultaneously. Delivers multiple virtual ADCs. Enables isolated and independent netscaler instances to run on single appliance. Hardware-based appliances with virtualization to consolidate up to 115 independently-managed NetScaler instances with a performance upto 200 Gbps

BEST FOR

  • Consolidating multiple physical load balancers
  • Providing flexible multi-tenancy
  • Service providers requiring fully isolated tenants
  • Simplifying application rollouts from staging and dev environments

VPX: These run as VMs in hypervisor (xenserver, esx/esxi, linux-kvm, hyper-v) on-prem or cloud environment. Allows netscaler instances to be provisioned on demand. Software-based virtual appliances that run on widely deployed hypervisors with a performance upto 10 Mbps–100 Gbps

BEST FOR

  • Architecting hybrid cloud infrastructures
  • Cloud native application load balancing for public cloud environements
  • Replace hardware based load balancers
  • Utilizing NetScaler in any use case, anywhere (from development to testing to production environments).
  • Architecting scalable multi-tenant infrastructures
  • Attractive application delivery options for telco, enterprises and small businesses

CPX: Netscaler in a container. Built from same code base as netscaler ADC. Packaged as docker container. Provides cloud-ready ADC with consistent set of services. Allows netscaler instances to be provisioned on-demand.

Docker containerized load balancer that can be supported on-premise and in multi-cloud environments

BEST FOR

  • Supporting containerized applications
  • Migrating to a microservices architecture
  • Providing developers and DevOps teams with load balancing early in the app development cycle

CPX can be hosted on any linux host and deployed in public, private or hybrid cloud.

Netscaler can also be deployed on AWS cloud, Microsoft Azure cloud, and softlayer cloud. It is also available on Citrix cloud.

Netscaler hardware devices are available as single unit device and double unit device (few devices are given in multiple numbers for backup, like two power supplies, one as primary, and other as backup).

BLX: We also have netscaler BLX which can be installed as a software on a linux device. You can run some commands and set whether this BLX software should use all network interfaces or only few.

Standard, enterprise and platinum license

Once you have come to a decision about which Netscaler edition you want, you need to decide which license you need. The license controls which features you get access to. Citrix can sometimes change the features in a license and new features also are also developed. Because of that I will recommend to take a look at the feature matrix right here. One other thing that the license also controls is the throughput. If you are in doubt how much throughput you need, you can always start low. Citrix offers a very flexible license model, that enables you to scale out when it’s needed.

See the feature matrix here and Netscaler Data sheet here

You may purchase a burst pack, which would bump your netscaler throughput for 30 days and reduce it after 30 days back to whatever your license is. Also, when you need more throughput, you just have to purchase the license and apply. Netscaler Tri-Scale clustering is a feature of platinum and enterprise editions only. Burst packs are available for MPX and SDX hardware platform models and vpx 1000 platform model only. When you install licenses with command line, you won’t be prompted to reboot. License file is stored in /nsconfig/license. You can also warm reboot your netscaler device. This will only reboot netscaler software on your netscaler device, not the whole netscaler device.

Want to learn more on Citrix Automations and solutions???

Subscribe to get our latest content by email.

If you like our content, please support us by sponsoring on GitHub below: