Oracle EBS 12.1 runs on XenApp

Citrix XenApp™, a member of the Citrix Delivery Center™ product family, is the industry's de facto standard for delivering Windows-based applications with the best performance, security and cost savings. XenApp is the most complete application virtualization system available with the ability to virtualize applications on both the client side and server side, delivering them on demand based on the user, the application or the location (online or offline).

By centralizing applications and data in secure datacenters, IT can reduce the costs of management and support, increase data security and facilitate business continuity. XenApp Platinum Edition adds critical capabilities for application performance monitoring, secure remote access, WAN optimization and single-sign-on application security.

Citrix XenApp is compatible with Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1. Organizations of any size can deploy XenApp on industry standard servers anywhere in the datacenter, on a single server or across all cloud computing datacenters. This simple integration takes Enterprise applications into the virtual realm, allowing customers to run Oracle on Virtual Machines, within XenServer, delivered to the end user through XenApp.

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Oracle EBS 12.1 is integrated with Citrix NetScaler

Deployed in front of Web servers, NetScaler application delivery controller models combine load balancing and content switching. Potential benefits include application acceleration, content caching, SSL acceleration, network optimization, and application performance monitoring in a single built-for-purpose hardware platform. Unlike other approaches that require multiple point products, NetScaler is an all-in-one appliance that is easy to deploy, configure, and operate with AppExpert Visual Policy Builder GUI-based tools, AppExpert Templates, and multiple wizards.

NetScaler 9.1 is available in both hardware-based (NetScaler MPX) and application-based deployments (NetScaler VPX). All deployment options available in version 9.1 are compatible with Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1. Organizations of any size can deploy NetScaler VPX on industry standard servers anywhere in the datacenter. NetScaler VPX enables load balancing, application acceleration, application security and server offload to become virtual appliance-based services that can be easily and dynamically deployed; on-demand and anywhere in the datacenter. Whether installed on a single server or across all cloud computing datacenters.

Download the Citrix NetScaler, Oracle EBS 12.1 Deployment Guide.

Download the Citrix NetScaler, Oracle EBS 12.1 Data Sheet.

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New NetScaler Technology Speeds Applications that Push Data to Users, Achieving Greater Real-time Interactivity with Fewer Servers Required

This groundbreaking new capability was specifically designed to address the demands that today's interactive Web 2.0 applications are placing on server infrastructures. While Web 2.0 applications are ushering in a new era of enhanced functionality and responsiveness for end users, they are highly inefficient when it comes to server computing resources. In order to create a rich interactive experience, Web 2.0 applications need to maintain a one-to-one user connection to backend servers for extended periods, which severely taxes datacenter resources and adversely impacts performance and scalability. NetScaler is the first application delivery controller to streamline this process by "pushing" data directly to thousands of users concurrently, offloading web servers from this burdensome task. As a result, server costs for delivering Web 2.0 applications can be reduced by five to ten times.

Rich Web Experience at a Fraction of the Cost

These new capabilities allow NetScaler to free up backend servers from inefficient connection management tasks, thus shrinking the number of servers needed. This reduced server footprint in the datacenter improves server utilization and allows a smaller set of servers to accomplish the same business tasks, cutting server costs by up to 90 percent by decreasing power, cooling and operational overhead.

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Application Delivery is at the top of the list of any organization's priorities. Keeping up with those priorities requires a move to dynamic application delivery and virtualization. The Citrix NetScaler Application Switch is a powerful step in that direction.

Compressing content at the server level can be done, but is tedious, and with the number of hosted servers on the backend growing proportionally with virtualization, it is better suited to a frontend tool. 

As an Application Expert, determining what type of content is compressible vs. that which is not compressible should be at the tip of your tongue, or at least you should be able to reference this post or document.  The thing is, while some content types remain compressible/non-compressible across many applications, you might run across an application that requires some content be treated uniquely.  For example, the SAP application requires that pdf files should not be compressed when sent back to the clients.  Either way, you should know how to dynamically configure rules to accommodate for the applications content.  This Compression Deployment Guide shows you how.

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Policies are used to configure various Citrix NetScaler Application Switch features. For example, the parameters for compressing content are defined in a compression policy.

The features that use policies are:

• Load Balancing
• Content Switching
• Content Filtering
• AppCompress
• Cache Redirection
• SSL VPN
• Priority Queuing
• DoS Protection
• Sure Connect

Policy expressions are applied to content that enters the switch. Expressions are shared among features, but actions are feature-specific. For example, you can create an expression to identify .pdf files being sent through the system. You can then create a compression policy that uses this expression to compress those files. The Policy Engine (PE) refers to the architecture in the Citrix NetScaler Application Switch for versions up to 8.x. The architecture for Policy Engine and the manner in which it operates is presented in this Deployment Guide.  Did you know that each feature in the Citrix NetScaler Application Switch is processed in a certain order, and the Policy Engine (PE) applies policy according to that order.  That order is represented in this diagram and discussed in the Deployment Guide for Policy Engine (PE).

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As web applications grow in complexity, the art of accelerating them seems to remain the same. This art is performed by applying some basic concepts to the application; that is, Caching, Compression, Load Balancing, Global Server Load Balancing, SSL Offload & Acceleration, Content Switching, TCP Multiplexing and SSL Session Reuse.

Citrix® is a leader in Gartners magic quadrant for Application Delivery with their flagship appliance NetScaler®. NetScaler accelerates web application performance by leveraging multiple acceleration technologies and innovative TCP optimizations.

Whether you are building out a new datacenter and architecting it the right way, or retrofitting an existing datacenter, Citrix NetScaler will perform and keep costs down. Whether you are looking to accelerate legacy enterprise applications such as Oracle or SAP, or building a new web 2.0 social community, Citrix NetScaler contains all of the tools to get you there.

Citrix NetScaler web application delivery solutions are purpose built appliances that accelerate application performance, while simultaneously reducing datacenter costs and improving web application security. Platforms range from the entry level 7000 to the latest MPX-series appliances that provide an industry-leading 15 Gbs of throughput at Layers 4 through 7.

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Becoming an Application Expert means that you can profile an application and quickly determine how it can be architected or re-constructed for higher performance. Of course, we want you to use the Citrix Application Switch as part of the architecture. In Part 1, we learned how to profile an application to learn what it looks like as the traffic flows through the Citrix Application Switch. Now we will determine what parts of an application are cacheable and what parts are non-cacheable.

By Application Profiling we can determine which parts of the application are cacheable and non-cacheable just by looking at the Request and Response headers. The application will sometimes tell you through it's "Cache-Control" header directives. Some content that we just know is static and doesn't ever change, we can consider cacheable as static content. Content that changes, such as reports, are often considered non-cacheable but with the help of Selectors and Dynamic Content Groups in the Citrix NetScaler, this content can be cached. As a proof of concept, we deployed the Citrix NetScaler Application Switch in the front of Oracle E-Business Suite v12 application and implemented caching policies for both static and dynamic content. As it turns out, alot of static content is cached by default policies and setting up dynamic policies is not that difficult. To see how, read the Caching Deployment Guide for Oracle E-Business Suite v12.

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Application Profiling

Introduction:

I can turn you into an Application expert in 5 minutes by reading this post.  Just do what the experts do, or even the not-so-experts.  They pay meticulous attention to the requests from clients and the responses from servers, both headers and body content.  You do this the old fashioned way by taking a trace.  There are better tools out there, some free, some not-so-free.

Running a trace:

Running a trace will help you 'profile' the application. It is recommended that you do this before placing the Citrix Application Switch in-line of the Application traffic. This will gather important information about the Application that will help you understand it's basic operation at Layer 7, and help you begin to understand what it is that needs to be accelerated - cached, compressed, load balanced, ssl offloaded, etc.

Running a trace exposes the flow of transactions between all points of interest. Traces are especially helpful when digging in to find what is contained within the headers being exchanged between the client and the application.

Taking a trace with wireshark:

The free network protocol analyzer called wireshark, http://www.wireshark.org, will capture packets for you on the localhost, whether it's windows or linux. By filtering the stream of packets by IP Address, right clicking and selecting 'Follow TCP Stream' inside of wireshark, you can see the headers for both requests and responses.

Wireshark tip 1 Find the first 'SYN' in the stream, right click, 'Follow TCP Stream'.

Wireshark tip 2 Client requests are in Red, Server responses are in Blue.

Taking a trace with the Citrix Application Switch:

If the Citrix Application Switch is already in place, a trace can be run directly on the Citrix Application Switch. Running a trace will expose the flow of transactions between all points of interest, especially the client, load balancing VIPs and backend servers. Traces are especially helpful when digging in to find out if the proper headers are being exchanged between client & VIP and VIP & backend servers. A trace can be run directly on the Citrix Application Switch. Once downloaded this file can be opened and request and response headers read with Wireshark, a free network trace utility, http://www.wireshark.org. From the Citrix Application Switch GUI, navigate to NetScaler -> System -> Diagnostics -> New Trace -> Run. 

Viewing headers with Paros:

Paros was originially written for web security, but has value when viewing request and response headers, cookies and the like. Through Paros's proxy nature, all HTTP and HTTPS data between server and client, including cookies and form fields, can be intercepted. There is an additional option of trapping and modifying data before sending it on to the server, or client. Paros can be found at http://parosproxy.org. Free.

Viewing headers with Live HTTP Headers:

Live HTTP Headers, http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/, was developed for use with the Firefox web browser. It is a free add-on and allows you to view HTTP header information in real time. Free.

Viewing headers with IE Analyzer:

IEInspector HTTP Analyzer, http://www.ieinspector.com, is a tool that allows you to monitor, trace, debug and analyze HTTP/HTTPS traffic in real-time. It works with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Not-Free.

Viewing headers with IE Watch:

IEWatch, http://www.iewatch.com, is another plug-in for Microsoft Internet Explorer that helps you profile your web applications. You can use this tool to dig deep into the inner workings of web applications to find hidden issues. Not-Free.

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The SAP Enterprise Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) provides a blueprint for services-based, enterprise scale business solutions that are adaptable, flexible, and open. Enterprise Services Architecture takes the concept of service-oriented architecture to a new level by transforming Web services into enterprise services. Bringing Citrix and SAP Enterprise Services Architecture together reduces the dependence on customized applications, and increases flexibility and reduces time to deployment while reducing operational expenses.

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We recently had a meeting with a large partner of ours and they handed down some hefty requirements.  An average of 100 partners using their portal on any given month to access their development environments on the backend.  It was clear that NetScaler could scale, but the question was how to keep all of those partners separated from each other, without them peeking into each others traffic. It turned out to be easier than we thought using the NetScaler as an SSL VPN with the addition of some policies bound to each partner's user group.  The following is an overview of the network diagram, and there are some deployment guides to walk you through these installations.