Citrix Command Center is a management and monitoring solution for the complete line of Citrix application networking products including Citrix NetScaler, Citrix Application Firewall, Citrix Access Gateway Enterprise Edition, and Citrix WANScaler.

• Centralized management and performance reporting of the entire range of Application Networking products, including the Citrix NetScaler, Citrix WANScaler, Citrix Application Firewall and Citrix Access Gateway Enterprise Edition devices.
• Centralized Configuration Management to configure multiple NetScalers from a single location. This reduces the possibility of mis-configurations, saves time and cost, and enhances manageability of a diversified NetScaler deployment substantially.
• Change Management and Configuration Auditing, which provides comprehensive visibility into the configurations of the managed NetScalers, allows administrators to track changes and synchronize changes across devices.
• Centralized SSL Certificate Management, which provides real time visibility into the status of all SSL certificates deployed on the managed NetScaler devices, and provides a central console from which administrators can renew and install new certificates.
• Alarm and Event Management, which provide NetScaler and WANScaler administrators the ability to configure granular thresholds for different aspects of system performance, be alerted when those thresholds are hit, and respond back quickly to changing traffic patterns or issues on the devices.
• Performance Monitoring and Reporting, using which administrators can generate historical reports, troubleshoot issues, and gather data that will help in capacity planning, resource utilization, uptime calculations, application loads etc.
• Security Auditing and Accounting, which ensures that only users authorized to use the Command Center are permitted to do so. Administrators can also specify highly granular rules and operations, that would allow partitioning of users into groups which can use only subsets of the Command Center's functionality, on an administrator specified subset of devices.

To ensure scalability of Command Center in user environments, version 3.1 also supports the following:

• Ability to run the Command Center server with an external instance of Oracle 10g or MySQL, allowing higher data storage scalability, and offering better data resiliency through clustered instances of these backend databases.
• User authentication through external AAA tools such as RADIUS, Active Directory and TACACS+, allowing for easy user and group management within Command Center

Command Center provides a rich HTML user interface to allow users to access the server remotely and centrally manage NetScaler deployments from remote locations.

Command Center can be installed on servers running Windows 2000+SP4 or Windows 2003, and Red Hat Linux AS/ES 3.0/4.0.

Citrix Command Center Brochure

Citrix command Center Download

regards,
Gus Pinto - Technology Evangelist
Microsoft MVP | Gus.Pinto@citrix.com
http://www.frameworkx.com

There was a recent flurry of emails when a Citrix partner wanted to know whether they could redistribute our SDK libraries as a part of the integration with their tool. Brad Pedersen (Chief Architect and Senior Fellow) confirmed that we allow distribution of Citrix libraries with products modified using the SDKs. In fact, we encourage our customers and partners to embed, integrate, and distribute our libraries. This way, we grow the Citrix ecosystem and the community.

I have also posted the revised EULA on the Citrix Developer Network so you don't have to download and install the SDK to read it. The EULA clarifies the above distribution rights.
http://community.citrix.com/display/cdn/Citrix+End+User+License+Agreement

I took a netscaler basic training a while ago. The class is very informative. And I would recommend it if you have an opportunity to take it.

For more information about this product, see

http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=21681

You can find more information about this training class at

http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=21768

Note that the course is being updated for 8.0 release.

Netscaler is great for network, application administrators and most articles have focused on this audience. Not much has been said about Netscaler benefits to application developers and its impact to application designs (particularly web applications). As a developer, I will try to give some examples from a developer perspective based on what I learned from the class.

Load balancing:

Netscaler offers powerful load balancing capabilities. In a multiple web server deployment scenarios, you will probably need a load balancer to load balance web servers. If your web server requires all requests associated with a session to remain on one server, Netscaler can be configured to do so easily and there are multiple methods to choose from. So a simple web application may simplify its design by maintaining its session state on the local server.

Some more complex applications use a separate group of application servers to run business logics. One example of such application is the MSAM product I worked on. (MSAM is an enterprise portal product for those who don know). Making sure the requests from web server to these application servers are load balanced efficiently was a challenge for us. And we spent lots of efforts on it. With netscaler, I now wonder if it makes more sense to eliminate application servers. Instead, host business logics on web servers as well and use netscaler to load balance web servers. It would simplify the design quite a lot and would have more flexible deployment options since the load balancing is separated from the application itself. Such design would be easier to debug, easier to scale up and perform better (less network traffic, simpler code)

For example, Netscaler has a slow start feature to avoid a newly added server to be overloaded. Many of the applications I seen don have this load balancing feature.

Content redirection:

Netscaler has this feature of redirecting requests to different backend servers based on flexible policies. For example, you can configure it to redirect HTTP traffic to a mobile web site if the request headers indicate the client device is a small form factor device. A use case for example can be as follows:

Web interface users can type the same URL they are familiar with from either small form factor devices such as blackberry (we have a blackberry ICA client now!http://citrixcommunity.com/blogs/cdn/archive/2007/03/26/Idokorro-Launches-new-Citrix-ICA-Client-for-BlackBerry.aspx) or a regular PC. A Netscaler can be put in front of web interface servers and redirect requests to different web interface sites that are designed to serve appropriate published applications.

Sure, the applications can do similar things themselves. But it not only require additional code but also difficult to make it as flexible as netscaler can do. Plus it is easier to reconfigure netscaler than changing the applications. Netscaler has a nice GUI to help with this task. Not to mention some applications such as web interfaces currently don have such capabilities yet.

Integrated caching:

For example, Netscaler can cache even dynamic content for specified period of time. Thus it can reduce the load to application server. For certain applications, it means, application developers can focus more on solving business problem and leaving the hard job of caching to NS.

It can be a challenge to design a high performance application. In MSAM and later AAC (advanced access control) products I worked on, we spent tons of development and testing effort to improve the web applications performance. It difficult because tasks such as converting word documents to PDFs do take relatively long time. We improved performance by caching the conversation result. But it is difficult to do and is application specific. If we could rely on Netscaler, we could have delivered the products much quicker.

There are many other benefits to developers. The above are just some examples. We love to hear your experience with netscaler.

I am going to step away from a moment from my normal blogging topics of XenServer, XenDesktop, and Provisioning Server, and blog about a project I did as a part of my last job within Citrix. This performance testing project hasn't received a lot of airtime with so many other things happening since the project was completed, so I would like to use this forum to highlight these great results.

In the summer of 2007, Citrix and IBM collaborated on joint testing of Citrix NetScaler and WanScaler at the IBM Innovation Center in San Mateo, CA. The goal of this testing was to validate the impact of NetScaler and WanScaler on end user response time for IBM WebSphere Portal, WebSphere Application Server, Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino Web Access. Load simulation was provided by Mercury LoadRunner to simulate multiple users access both WebSphere Portal and WAS over the simulated WAN link.

In this graphic, you see an overview of the test configuration -

Though not shown on this graphic, a Lotus Domino Server was also built for the testing by the staff of the IBM IIC for the testing. 

IBM WebSphere 

In this testing, we found the following results with WebSphere -

IBM WebSphere Portal

(Click on thumbnail to enlarge)

• Citrix NetScaler reduced login for WebSphere Portal by up to 50%

• Citrix NetScaler reduced standard portlet loading times by up to 44%

• Citrix NetScaler reduced Document Preview and Save time by up to 50%

• Citrix NetScaler and WanScaler combined reduced document preview and save time by up to 90%

IBM WebSphere Application Server -

• Citrix NetScaler reduced end user response time for a shopping cart application running on WAS by up to 70%

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(Click on thumbnail to enlarge)

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NetScaler compression and caching capabilities were utilized in this testing. The SSL and TCP off loading functions, EdgeSight for NetScaler and App Firewall functions can also add significant value to any WebSphere Portal or WAS deployment.

For more background on this portion of the test, see this presentation from the IBM WebSphere Portal Technical users Conference.

WebSphere Portal Technical Users Conference 2007 Presentation

Lotus Notes and Domino Web Access

Lotus Notes and Domino were also tested. Using a simulated T1, the testing measure the time it took for a standard Notes 7 client (with default install) to download and open a 5 MB attachment. This took about 44 seconds. See a video of this test at this link -

The next test was done after the cache on the client was completely cleared and the Notes client restarted. The wan simulator was monitored to ensure the file transfered again while a WanScaler appliance was running on each side on the T1 simulated link. In this test, the download and open time was slashed down to 6 seconds!

The amazing part about this test is that the compression and flow control of the WanScaler provided all the acceleration. Since this was the first time the document was downloaded through the WanScaler appliances, the WanScaler caching was not used at all.

The final test for Notes 7 was done with the WanScaler client. This client is used for individual users, not for an entire site like a WanScaler appliance. The WanScaler client download and open time was 14 seconds (compared to 44 seconds for the Notes 7 client with no wan optimization). Unfortunately there is a problem with this video.

Domino Web Access 

Our final test was with Domino Web Access and the Citrix NetScaler. In this test, we downloaded and opened a 7 MB Word document in the DWA client over the simulated T1.

 (Click on thumbnail to enlarge)

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The first test was done with the DWA client with the Domino compression disabled (compression is on by default). In this test, it took about 75 seconds to open the document. See the video here -

In the next test, the same 7 mb document was opened (with local cached completely cleared) again, but this time the DWA compression was enabled. This iteration took about 22 seconds to open the document. Obviously compression helps a great deal, but executing compression on the DWA server takes away CPU cycles needed for processing user requests. See the video here -

For our final test, the DWA client cache was again cleared and DWA compression disabled. The NetScaler was placed in front of the DWA server on the Datacenter side of the simulated T1 link. In this test, the document download and open time was a mere 13 seconds. See the video here -

Some certifications were awarded by IBM as a result of this testing -

Citrix NetScaler in IBM Global Solutions Directory - Ready for IBM Lotus and Ready for IBM WebSphere

Citrix WanScaler in IBM Global Solutions Directory- Ready for IBM Lotus and Ready for IBM WebSphere

As you can see, Citrix NetScaler and WanScaler can dramatically ramp up the performance of IBM WebSphere Portal, WebSphere Application Server, and Lotus Notes and Domino Web Access.

Click here for more info on Citrix NetScaler.

Click here for more info on Citrix WanScaler. 

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. 

iForum 2007 has come and gone.  Besides the event being a test of my stamina (5 days in Vegas!) it was an amazing event.  This year was the first in a transition from iForum the "Citrix" event to the "App Delivery Expo" which will be an industry event.  I would say the best indication that we are well on track to this transformation was the variety of sponsor partners, specifically the number of "first timers."  The other thing that stood out were the number of partners that little if anything to do with Presentation Server, something I have always been critical of.

In particular, the stand outs for me were B-Hive and Gomez.  B-Hive is new to the Citrix alliance program and their "conductor" plugs into existing application infrastructure. With unique self-learning technology, it identifies user transactions and enables you to monitor, analyze and control operations.  The cool parts are the self-learning engine (think off what Citrix got with Teros and apply that to an application's structure) and the control operations.  The control operations have been integrated with the NetScaler XML API to automates policy management.  Very cool and if customers are looking to drive down operations cost, this could be an answer.

Gomez is also in the segment of "monitoring", but they bring a very unique twist to the game.  Gomez is a SaaS model and they offer a very extensive solution for synthetic monitoring.  Customers can use either backbone nodes located in tier-1 centers worldwide or (and this is the cool part) one can use the ExperienceFirst Network for a last mile test.  This is a network where anyone Worlwide can sign up to install the Universal Transaction Agent (UTA) on a machine and introduce it into the last mile network.  This allows a customer to, down to the desktop, provide synthetic monitoring on a Geographic basis.  So, if I was an app owner wanting to determine how my app looks in China on a low broadband connection, I could do that using Gomez.  Combine that with NetScaler and this is an excellent A/B test for NetScaler impact.  Want proof at how powerful this is?  Run an instant test now.

Over the next few weeks, I will be blogging more in depth on why these two partners add so much value to the NetScaler world. 

Simple and Intuitive Application Delivery Policy Creation

The AppExpert Visual Policy Builder is a GUI-based environment that simplifies creating even the most complex application policy expressions. The AppExpert Visual Policy Builder can define any NetScaler application traffic management policy, regardless of what functional module is being invoked or whether it is acting upon header or payload content

Full Bi-directional Application and User Intelligence

The extensible AppExpert Engine loosely couples client and server application flows, provides visibility into and inspection of application traffic, and enables a shared policy management framework to control all functional modules. It is composed of two key components:
Application Switching Engine
The application switching engine decouples client requests and server responses, and provides direct and complete visibility into Web application transactions. The application switching engine is a native, integral component of the AppExpert platform, and delivers critical optimizations such as TCP connection multiplexing and TCP traffic buffering.

• Administrators to use a single environment — the AppExpert Visual Policy Builder) to define and manage application policies, regardless of what NetScaler functionality is being invoked
• Commonality of application policy expressions across different NetScaler functional modules
• Encapsulation and abstraction of much of the infrastructure associated with writing policies (e.g., the object model, API calls and command syntax)
• Different NetScaler functional modules to interoperate on the same application flow without conflict (e.g., ability to compress encrypted content, ability to cache compressed content)
  

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

Tap into the power of AppExpert!