Transform your network to meet evolving demands.To realize the full value of server virtualization, your network needs the agility to move workloads among servers in a matter of seconds—without needing days or weeks of reconfiguration to support the VM in its new location. Traditional network devices are static and don’t allow the rapid evolution demanded by today’s virtualization and cloud strategies, and are too OPEX intensive to deliver true cloud economics. Software defined networking (SDN) can overcome the limitations of traditional networks by allowing data center infrastructure deployment to be automated and delivered as a service. Citrix NetScaler™ leverages the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller™ (APIC) to programmatically automate network provisioning and control based on application requirements and policies for both data center and enterprise environments. Another interesting aspect of the Citrix NetScaler™ family of products is that a similar approach is taken for products like Citrix NetScaler SDX™, Citrix NetScaler Command Center™ and Citrix NetScaler Insight Center™. All of these products have NITRO based API frameworks and support the SDK model, so the whole family is automation ready.

Citrix NetScaler™ integrates with leading SDN systems and cloud orchestration platforms. The result is a dynamic network architecture that supports SDN and cloud strategies to increase agility, simplify operations and reduce costs. An app centric approach for defining networking policy and topology enables prescriptive, automated deployment and configuration of network services. IT can pre package the network services and associated topology, and then dynamically provision the best in class network services each application requires. This frees admins from complex, error prone per application provisioning of individual network services. Citrix NetScaler™ is the only application delivery controller that fully integrates into Cisco™’s unified fabric. Citrix™ and Cisco™ deliver business and application agility with ACI™. Citrix NetScaler™ and Cisco ACI™ enable data center and cloud administrators to holistically control L2—L7 network services in a unified manner via seamless insertion and automation of best in class NetScaler services into next—generation data centers built on Cisco’s ACI™ architectures.

Nitro SDK For Citrix NetScaler

Configure and monitor the Citrix NetScaler™ appliance with ease. The ability to control your networking device programmatically is essential for network owners. As deployments get complex and 10s/100s of devices are being used to perform similar tasks, it becomes extremely difficult to manually control the configuration changes. There are different automation and management architectures being discussed today, and you need to have your device interoperate with any such architecture. Citrix NetScaler™ supports an excellent layer of APIs called the NITRO APIs, which are RESTful and greatly superior to the last generation APIs. These APIs are fast, responsive and lightweight, providing hierarchical relationship of objects, allowing bulk processing and providing several other benefits over the traditional approach. With these quick SDKs, you can integrate with any automation framework and model. These SDKs are available for Java™, .NET™, Python™ and REST™, which would enable the integration with any model which can simply work over HTTP or HTTPS. For Microsoft Windows™ users, the .NET SDK™ can be used for PowerShell based automation.

Cisco ACE

To assist Cisco ACE™ customers make a seamless transition to a next generation Citrix NetScaler ADC™ solution, Citrix™ offers a special Cisco ACE Migration Program™ with financial incentives and Citrix NetScaler™ implementation services delivered by Citrix Consulting Services™. Together, Cisco™ and Citrix™ are making it easier than ever to move to the industry’s most advanced application delivery solution. Software defined networking enhances the benefits of data center virtualization, increasing resource flexibility and utilization and reducing infrastructure costs. IT costs are dramatically reduced through policy enabled workflow automation, enabling on demand application delivery and mobility at scale. Citrix NetScaler™ integrates with leading SDN platforms to converge the management of network and application services into a centralized, extensible orchestration platform that can automate the provisioning and configuration of the entire infrastructure. The result is a modern infrastructure that can deliver new applications and services in minutes. Leveraging Cisco RISE™ technology, Citrix NetScaler™ seamlessly integrates with the Cisco Nexus™ series switch for simplified deployment, automated control and lower cost of operations.

Features And Benefits

On demand cloud services and SDN allow organizations to quickly grow and transform to meet the demands of the modern workplace. Citrix NetScaler™ enables organizations to ensure the best security, performance and reliability whether workloads run in the data center or in an external cloud. By allowing IT to deliver every application workload at scale and with simplicity, organizations can benefit from all that cloud computing has to offer. Expanding the virtual network infrastructure portfolio.  Citrix™ and Cisco™ have delivered the Citrix NetScaler™ 1000V, a best in class application delivery controller that redefines L4—L7 services. Building on Cisco™ strength in Unified Fabric™ and Unified Compute™, and Citrix™ strength in intelligent, application delivery, the architecture runs on the Cisco Nexus Virtual Service Platform™ to provide a virtual network infrastructure that delivers scalability, elastic instantiation, and multi tenant operation, all with a common approach to service provisioning and management. The Citrix NetScaler 1000V™ is available via the normal Cisco™ sales and worldwide channels, providing a smooth migration path for Cisco ACE™, GSS™ and CSS™ customers. Citrix NetScaler™ is the Cisco ACE™ replacement product recommended by Cisco™.