ADI stands for Application Delivery Infrastructure, the category of technologies used to deliver applications. Here you can find best practices, architectures, implementation guides, tools, tips and techniques not only for using Citrix products but for any technology and vendor involved in ADI.

The architecture of application delivery infrastructure centers on virtualization, optimization and management, and security technologies that interoperate and work with other IT infrastructure components to deliver the application from its inception in the datacenter to its consumption at the endpoint.

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As IT organizations struggle to keep pace with the demands of business, application delivery has become a major priority for CIOs around the world. Get advice from leading analysts, including Forrester Consulting, on pragmatic steps to transition from application deployment to application delivery.
Delivery, Please!
- Burton Group's Eric Siegel reveals the best practices behind application delivery.

A Guide to Application Delivery for CIOs and Senior IT Executives
- learn how to architect an IT organization that can rapidly respond to new business requirements.

A Guide to Application Delivery for Network Architects
- learn how to improve performance and security for web apps and WANs.

A Guide to Application Delivery for IT Infrastructure Operations
- learn how to enhance security and business continuity for Windows apps.

A Guide to Application Delivery for Desktop Operations Managers
- learn how to streamline management of Windows desktops.

Moving from Application Deployment to Application Delivery
- Learn about the differences between these two paradigms and how application delivery enables a rapid response.

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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Citrix® NetScaler® web application delivery solutions are purpose built appliances that accelerate application performance up to five times, 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 gigabits per second of througput at both Layer 4 and Layer 7 with maximum simultaneous use of all functional modules. They provide visibility into the end-user application experience and comprehensive web application security in concert with advanced traffic management. NetScaler, a member of the Citrix Delivery Center product family, is an ideal network management solution for any enterprise seeking accelerated Web application performance, improved web application security and increased application availability.

Continue at Source: Citrix

*Santa Clara, CA » 4/28/2008 »* Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced its new NetScaler MPX line of web application delivery systems.  The new NetScaler solutions feature a massively parallel multi-core system architecture that significantly increases datacenter capacity and delivers 2.5¹  times more web applications with the same infrastructure footprint. Citrix® NetScaler® MPX also provides unmatched performance when delivering applications that demand the highest security and best end-user experience. Today's web applications are straining traditional load balancers and rigidly-constructed datacenters with the integration of rich media capabilities, service oriented architectures (SOA) and interactive Web 2.0 capabilities. These applications are significantly more complex and resource intensive, yet they must still be delivered with the fastest performance, best security and lowest cost. NetScaler MPX is the industry's first web application delivery controller to drive greater than ten gigabits per second (Gbps) of real world application performance while concurrently providing advanced acceleration, traffic compression, and integrated web application firewall security - all in an energy-smart appliance form factor.

As an integral component of the Citrix Delivery Center^TM product family, NetScaler MPX also enables the push toward dynamic datacenters that can more easily adapt to the needs of today's increasingly complex web applications.  As part of this end-to-end solution architecture, NetScaler MPX provides sophisticated workflow virtualization that senses changes in application demand and automatically invokes the necessary application and server resources to meet dynamic workloads. This unique capability provides a fundamental building block of the new dynamic datacenter by offering the necessary scalability and virtualization capabilities needed to cost effectively deliver both enterprise and Internet-facing web applications.

"With its high-performance architecture, NetScaler MPX relieves key customer pain points in large, dynamic datacenters, including the challenge of reducing power consumption while managing traffic loads that are beginning to cross the 10 Gbps threshold," said Cindy Borovick, Research Vice President for IDC's Datacenter Networks service.

Continue at Source: Citrix

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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For those who know what a SlingBox is then you know what I mean when I say that it ranks up there with Tivo as being one of the all time media gadgets.

 
For those of you who do not know what a SlingBox is or who SlingMedia is, I suggest you experience it for yourself, they have a great demo of their products on their site, SlingMedia.

My purpose in this post is to not only convey my bummed out-ness that the SlingCatcher has been delayed, but it is also to let you know how I think about how their products align with what we do here at Citrix.

We are all about application delivery, virtualization, and some could argue even content delivery. Take for example the WanScalar and LanScalar products, I think they easily fit into the content delivery space as well as they do in application delivery. This is where I also think SlingMedia fits into the content delivery space. They currently have the SlingBox which you attach to your choice of television tuners, and you can then stream that content in real time to either a PC or Mobile device. There soon to be released, I so want one, SlingCatcher is going to be a standalone device that you can connect to your choice of displays to watch streamed content from a SlingBox. This is starting to sound like what we at Citrix do for applications and desktop, hmmm!

Now all we have to do is wait for them to release the SlingCatcher, to see what their Thin Client can really do, as I would really love to be able to GoToMyTV or GoToMyMedia =)

Check it out for yourself:

SlingMedia

Also Check out:

Frameworkx Community Blog - SlingCatcher - When are we going to be able to tune in

In a recent post, What Cloud Computing Really Means, on the New York Times website, Eric Knorr and Galen Gruman give us a glimpse of the many definitions of cloud computing.
 

 

"Today, with such cloud-based interconnection seldom in evidence, cloud computing might be more accurately described as "sky computing," with many isolated clouds of services which IT customers must plug into individually. On the other hand, as virtualization and SOA permeate the enterprise, the idea of loosely coupled services running on an agile, scalable infrastructure should eventually make every enterprise a node in the cloud."

Their article goes into identifying the components of what cloud computing is all about.

Here is a breakdown of those components:

• Software as a Service
• Utility computing
• Web services in the cloud
• Platform as a service
• Managed Service Providers
• Service commerce Platforms
• Internet integration

Continue at Source: What Cloud Computing Really Means

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. 

Moved Document Root

The Citrix NetScaler can be placed in front of a webserver farm that is running Apache. The same re-write rules that run on Apache, can be implemented on the Citrix NetScaler.

Usually the Document Root of the web server directly relates to the URL "/". But in some cases the document root should shift to some other directory. The following rules can be used to implement this.

Example : Rewrite the url / to /e/www

Apache rewrite:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule   ^/$  /e/www/  [R]

AppExpert rewrite: (There are two ways to do this)

add responder action act1 redirect '"/e/www/"' -bypassSafetyCheck yes
add responder policy pol1 'HTTP.REQ.URL.EQ("/")' act1
bind responder global pol1 100

add responder action act1 redirect '"/e/www"+HTTP.REQ.URL' -bypassSafetyCheck yes
add responder policy pol1 '!HTTP.REQ.URL.STARTSWITH("/e/www/")' act1
bind responder global pol1 100 END

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