Summary

NetScaler 9.3.e is an enhancement branch of the 9.3 release. Like NetScaler 9.3, NetScaler 9.3.e meets this challenge by delivering a service delivery architecture that enables consolidation of adjacent services, like desktop delivery, data optimization, application visibility, network bridging and identity management.

Key New Features:

• Database load balancing for Oracle MySQL and Microsoft SQL
• AppFlowTM – open, IPFIX standards-based application flow visibility
• New dynamic XenDesktop/XenApp health monitors
• Load balancing for Branch Repeater
• Application Firewall signatures
• OpenCloud Bridge

Citrix NetScaler® OpenCloud Bridge™ feature is a tool used to build a cloud-extended data center leveraging a layer-2 network bridge that connects a premise datacenter to a cloud.  In this release, OpenCloud Bridge relies on Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) protocol and IPSec support.  The GRE protocol provides a mechanism for encapsulating packets from a wide variety of network protocols to be forwarded over another protocol.  In the OpenCloud Bridge scenarios, WAN optimization can be combined with GRE to optimize the WAN traffic to the cloud.

In addition, here are the new features that have been included with these 9.3.e builds.

• Ability to flush surge queue without disabling service
• “show cs vserver” output should list policies by priority instead of bind order
• Allow ICMP fragments for ECHO request and response.
• Ability to customize string that would match through a policy.  Customserverid persistence to be string vs an integer.
• Forwarding sessions support
• Ability to use specified source IP for backend communication (Network Profile) support

Enhancements

Content Switching
When you run the ‘show cs vserver’ command, you can now view the content switching policies associated with the virtual server in the order of the
priority of the policies rather than by the chronological order in which they are bound. This enhancement can help you know the order in which the content switching polices are applied and therefore, understand how client requests are routed. The configuration utility also shows the content switching policies in the order of their priority.  For more information, see the “Viewing the Properties of Content Switching Virtual Servers” section in the Content Switching chapter of the Citrix NetScaler Traffic Management Guide, available at http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128670.

Networking

Now you can enable a NetScaler appliance to forward all the ICMP fragments of an ICMP echo request, destined to a network device, and the ICMP fragments of the corresponding echo response. One of the examples where this enhancement is useful is a scenario including a NetScaler appliance and a Windows 2000 Server. The Windows 2000 server sends out ICMP request of size 2048 for slow link detection. The NetScaler appliance successfully forwards the ICMP fragments of the ICMP request to the destined network device and the ICMP fragments of the ICMP response from the network device to the Windows 2000 server.

Surge Protection
If you want to flush the surge queue of a service, service group, or a load balancing or content switching virtual server, now you do not need to disable
the NetScaler entity. With this enhancement, you can manage the traffic in surge conditions without affecting the existing traffic.
Options are added to the command line interface and configuration utility to flush a surge queue. Flushing a surge queue does not affect the existing
connections. Only the requests present in the surge queue get deleted. For those requests, the client has to make a fresh request.
When you flush the surge queue of a virtual server, the surge queues of all the services and service groups bound to it are flushed. When you flush the surge
queue of a service group, surge queues of all its members are flushed. You can flush the surge queue of one or more members of a service group without
flushing the surge queues of all its members. You can flush the surge queue of a specific service. In the configuration utility, when you select an entity the ‘Flush Surge Queue’ option is available in the action pane. In the command line interface ‘flush ns surgeQ’ option is added with necessary options.
For more information, see the “Flushing the Surge Queue” section in the Load Balancing chapter of the Citrix NetScaler Traffic Management Guide, available at http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128670.

Download Citrix NetScaler 9.3.e here (require myCitrix)

Understanding OpenCloud Access

One of the major areas of interest for any enterprise is to provide its employees and partners with seamless, on-demand access to applications. This is complicated by the fact that these applications can be running on various platforms and can exist within the enterprise, can be hosted with a service provider (IaaS), or can be offered as SaaS. The obvious need is for a solution with a single unified framework that offers a consistent view to securely control the entire life cycle of user accounts on these applications.

While offering secure access, a solution of this nature should offer a smooth end user experience by serving the applications on demand and by providing single sign-on to the application users. The solution should tie into existing enterprise infrastructure, making the implementation quick and easy. Citrix® NetScaler® appliances and the Citrix® OpenCloud Access® application come together to offer exactly such a solution.

OpenCloud Access integrates with NetScaler to deliver an Enterprise solution for single sign-on (SSO) and user-account management. It provides the ability to extend an enterprise identity to any Web application (internal or external), and offers seamless SSO to enterprise Web applications as well as Internet based SaaS applications. This solution also provides a central platform from which to perform user-account management.

The OpenCloud Access VM is a virtual appliance that runs on Citrix® XenServer®. Citrix® XenCenter®, Citrix® XenServer, and the OpenCloud Access image are essential components of the Setup process.

OpenCloud Access 1.2 VM provides many new features and resolution to few issues with OCA 1.1 VM. It captures all OpenCloud Access features released up to Service Pack 5. Thus with this single VM image you get equivalent to OCA 1.1 VM + Service Pack 5 (Including other Service Packs and Hot Fixes).

Key Features of the release are:

• Works with NetScaler VPX and MPX
• Works with NetScaler 9.2, 9.2.e and 9.3 software releases
• MyWebApps employee portal page
• 71 application SSO connectors
• 28 application Provisioning connectors
• Reduced setup time for key SSO use case
• Generic HTTP Formfill connector creator
• Generic SAML connector creator
• Two Factor authentication for portal page
• Single Sign-on application categories
• Linking applications to Active Directory
• Enhanced Active Directory synchronization

Download OpenCloud Access 1.2 here (require mycitrix id)

Redefining traditional Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs)

Citrix Systems have announced NetScaler® SDX, a groundbreaking new virtualized networking platform designed from the ground up to serve as the “front door” for virtual datacenters and clouds. With the new NetScaler SDX platform, customers can now run numerous virtualized NetScaler instances on a single purpose-built physical appliance with full multi-service, multi-tenant support. This innovative new architecture helps customers move from traditional application delivery to far richer “service delivery” required by the adoption of cloud computing, and growing user demand for new services delivered to a wide range of consumer devices.

Creating a service delivery fabric requires understanding and redefining traditional application delivery controllers (ADCs), such as Citrix® NetScaler®, in a services context. For example, application availability becomes service availability, while application optimization becomes service optimization.

More than just a name change, the transition to a service delivery fabric needs infrastructure and user-centric delivery capabilities that enable the delivery of services as well as applications. Since this fabric will become the foundation of enterprise IT and an essential element of an organization’s competitive differentiation, it needs enterprise-class power, flexibility and manageability too.

In some instances developers will be able to meet the new requirements by transforming an existing capability, typically by extending its scope of coverage. In other cases, though—such as with the need for broader and deeper visibility—developers are likely to have to create entirely new capabilities.

Highlights

• NetScaler SDX is a groundbreaking new platform that uses advanced hardware and software virtualization to run multiple “virtual NetScaler instances” on a single hardware appliance – each optimized for different apps, services, sites and customers.
• Each virtual instance is a complete NetScaler environment, incorporating all the functions needed to deliver apps and services with the best performance, security and reliability, including load balancing, caching, compression, SSL VPN, SSL offload, federated identity and app firewall.
• NetScaler SDX provides full network, CPU, memory and SSL acceleration isolation for each virtual NetScaler instance, as well as per-instance (rather than per-appliance) high availability, version control and lifecycle management.
• NetScaler SDX incorporates SR-IOV (single root I/O virtualization) capabilities from Intel to provide fast, multi-tenant, multi-service appliance capable of running at native wire speeds.
• The next-generation NetScaler SDX architecture provides the foundation for further consolidation of adjacent service delivery capabilities such as WAN optimization, network security and virtual desktop delivery.
• A single control plane within the NetScaler SDX platform provides unified provisioning, monitoring and management of all virtual NetScaler instances, while also enabling administrative privileges to be delegated per instance.
• The NetScaler SDX 17500, 19500 and 21500 models share a common hardware platform with the existing NetScaler MPX 17500, 19500 and 21500 models, enabling MPX appliances to be easily upgraded in the field to all the new NetScaler SDX functionality.

Availability

NetScaler SDX platforms include the SDX-17500, SDX-19500 and SDX-21500, offering performance up to 50Gbps, and will be available in April 2011.

Overview

Architecture

Whitepapers:

• How NetScaler supports Multi-Tenancy datacenters
• NetScaler Service Delivery
• Transform from application to service delivery
• Compare NetScaler editions
• Data sheet over NetScaler SDX, MPX, VPX editions

Learn more about NetScaler

• NetScaler SDX Overview
• Pay-as-you-grow
• Burst packs
• Try NetScaler

Noticed that Citrix have put up their new Cloud applicance and Cloud application on MyCitrix.com

I will try to get some more info about the products:

• OpenCloud Access Virtual Appliance for Citrix XenServer
• OpenCloud Access
• OpenCloud Access- Application Connector Pack

Learn more about Citrix OpenCloud here