Citrix NetScaler Delivers Massive Network Consolidation for Private and Public Clouds

New NetScaler Solution Uses Integrated Virtualization to Consolidate Up to 40 Appliances into a Single Platform

SANTA CLARA » 10/5/2011 » Citrix Systems today unveiled four new additions to its leading Citrix® NetScaler® MPX™ and SDX™ product lines, delivering the unprecedented performance and virtualization that businesses require in the Cloud Era. Virtualization has been integral to the development of enterprise private clouds, which are being pressed to deliver unprecedented levels of utilization and elasticity. While server and storage infrastructures have been prime beneficiaries of virtualization, the end-to-end networking fabric – representing nearly one-fifth of total datacenter investment – has not yet included the virtualization of key networking services. What is required is a next-generation networking platform that integrates virtualization directly into the networking fabric to consolidate network services at scale, and deliver Pay-As-You-Grow elasticity. The new NetScaler MPX and SDX platforms, including the 50 Gbps SDX 21550 appliance, provide the right networking footprint to tackle large-scale network consolidation initiatives with the flexibility to scale without additional hardware.

Successful network consolidation requires more than applying off-the-shelf virtualization to decouple selected networking functions from dedicated hardware. It demands a natively virtualized architecture that efficiently scales services, protects application SLAs by fully isolating processing resources, and delivers on-demand elasticity. The new NetScaler SDX platforms meet these requirements and more, supporting up to 40 completely independent NetScaler instances on a single appliance – 2.5 times more than competing hardware chassis-based solutions.

In addition, NetScaler SDX completely isolates system resources, such as memory, CPU and SSL processing, so that the demands of one application do not degrade the performance of another. Besides delivering dedicated SSL resources for each NetScaler service in a multi-tenant environment, the new platform also sets a new high-water mark for SSL performance.

Organizations are transitioning to 2048-bit SSL standards for stronger application security. This shift, along with increased SSL coverage across applications, is putting network and application performance at risk due to the increased processing demands required by stronger SSL key lengths. Smoothly transitioning to stronger 2048-bit SSL necessitates a re-examination of the infrastructure to ensure that processing capacity meets emerging needs. New NetScaler MPX and SDX platforms are designed from the ground up to handle 2048-bit and stronger SSL security, with support for 90,000 new 2048-bit SSL transactions per second, more than two times faster than the leading competitor.

What’s New
• Industry-leading Network Consolidation: The new NetScaler SDX appliances integrate virtualization directly into the network fabric to support up to 40 completely independent NetScaler instances for large-scale consolidation projects. Each NetScaler instance and policy is supported by dedicated CPU, memory, SSL and compression resources to protect application SLAs, and to meet strict security and compliance mandates.

• Fastest 2048-bit SSL Performance: NetScaler handles 90,000 new SSL transactions per second with 2048-bit keys, more than two times faster than the leading competitor.

Pricing and Availability
Citrix NetScaler MPX and SDX versions of the 17550, 19550, 20550 and 21550 appliances meet a broad range of price-performance requirements. These models are available later this quarter through Citrix Solution Advisors worldwide. Pricing begins at $145,000 for NetScaler MPX and $220,000 for NetScaler SDX - with no additional cost for enabling maximum SSL performance. Customers can upgrade platform performance and scalability with NetScaler Pay-As-You-Grow licenses.

Quotes
Sunil Potti, Vice President and General Manager, Cloud Networking Platforms Group, Citrix
“Citrix innovation is leading the migration to the Cloud Era. Our ability to consolidate 40 virtual appliances into one network form factor is an amazing advancement for customers implementing private or public clouds. The new NetScaler platform is the only product in the market that uses integrated virtualization to offer the flexibility to scale as needed without having to purchase additional hardware thereby driving true elasticity into the network. ”

Jim Frey, Managing Research Director, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)
“Citrix continues to demonstrate a relentless focus on improving the performance of virtualized, cloud-delivered applications, including at the network infrastructure layer. This new set of NetScaler capabilities represents an aggressive move to leverage both virtualization and hardware advances to elevate the state of the art in Application Delivery Controllers.”

About Citrix NetScaler

Citrix NetScaler makes applications and cloud-based services run five times better by offloading application and database servers, accelerating application and service performance, and integrating security. Customers looking for a powerful application delivery solution can choose the popular NetScaler MPX hardware appliance, which powers most of the world’s largest enterprises and websites – as well as thousands of small to midsized companies. Organizations requiring the full breadth of NetScaler features in a flexible software form factor can chose the NetScaler VPX virtual appliance. Enterprises and cloud providers that want to deliver applications and services in a virtualized, multi-tenant platform can choose NetScaler SDX.