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ICA Proxy for XenApp using NetScaler AGEE.
Citrix NetScaler, a member of the Citrix Delivery Center™, is a purpose-built web application delivery solution that accelerates application performance up to five times while improving security and reducing web infrastructure costs. Access Gateway™, a member of the Citrix Delivery Center, is an only SSL VPN to securely deliver any application with policy-based SmartAccess control. Access Gateway, Enterprise Edition (AGEE) runs on the Citrix NetScaler.
Citrix XenApp™, also 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.
By centralizing applications and data in secure datacenters, IT can reduce the costs of management and support, increase data security and facilitate business continuity.
We at Citrix are often asked how to deploy a NetScaler AGEE in front of a XenApp server farm, to proxy application delivery over the ICA protocol, securely. The NS SGEE secures XenApp delivered applications by serving as a proxy for those applications. NS AGEE proxies the ICA connections delivered from XenApp, and then wraps those applications with HTTPS or SSL to secure the traffic before it leaves your organization.
This is possible by following the steps in the deployment guide. This guide is specific to the NetScaler Access Gateway Enterprise Edition (AGEE), which is different hardware & software from the Citrix Access Gateway Standard Edition (AGSE).
Download the deployment guide.
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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 Tolly report shows that NetScaler 9.1 with nCore technology significantly outperforms F5's latest software release, BIG-IP v10. The results were astounding. Tolly conducted a battery of standard load balancing and acceleration tests and found that F5 introduces at least 3X more latency than NetScaler across all test scenarios. The report details the impressive performance NetScaler's nCore technology and highlights a significant deficiency with F5's architecture, namely latency. For example, it takes F5 2533.4 milliseconds to deliver an 8KB object versus 1.5 milliseconds for NetScaler. That's a significant negative impact to the end user experience and productivity, which can directly affect a company's bottom line.
To view the full Tolly report, click here
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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.
There's more here: Case Studies, White Papers, Analysts , Datasheets
Check out the new MPX!
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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.
Watch this Caching Tip:
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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.
Watch this Application Profiling Tip:
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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.
This Citrix / SAP Enterprise SOA Deployment Guide was created out of a joint engagement between Citrix and SAP at the Co-Innovation Laboratory in Palo Alto, California, USA. This deployment guide walks through the step-by-step configuration details of how to configure the Citrix NetScaler for use as front-end to SAP Portal for end-user traffic, that is HTTP ~ HTML. To further complement the value of the Enterprise SOA, this guide walks through the details of how to configure the Citrix NetScaler for use as a front-end to the SAP Composite Application Framework and SAP ERP Web Services platforms, providing a flexible load balancer and HTTPS encryption point for machine to machine web service traffic. With this deployment Citrix becomes an integral and flexible part of the SAP Enterprise SOA "Applistructure" bringing together applications and technology for a fast, flexible and highly effective service oriented IT infrastructure.
Watch this Load Balancing Tip:
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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.
The Citrix SSL VPN CPS Deployment Guide walks you through deploying NetScaler SSL VPN as an ICA Proxy and authentication point. It then walks you through deploying Citrix Presentation Server and the steps necessary to connect the SSL VPN to the CPS Applications. The guide includes Session policies which direct users upon authentication to specific CPS farms on the backend of the NetScaler SSL VPN. Think of it as an authentication portal.
The Citrix SSL VPN Deployment Guide walks you through deploying NetScalers as an HA Pair, and then as an SSL VPN with ICA Proxy OFF. The intention was to use the SSL VPN for regular VPN traffic, and not Citrix Presentation Server traffic. Just as well, policies can be combined on the same NetScaler Application Switch to allow both non-CPS and CPS traffic to traverse the same SSL VPN.
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