NetScaler ADC Pooled Capacity Validated Reference Design Part 1

NetScaler ADC Pooled Capacity Validated Reference Design Part 1

September 21, 2022

Author:  Luis Ugarte, Beth Pollack

NetScaler ADC pooled capacity is a licensing framework that is comprised of a bandwidth pool and a virtual instance pool that is hosted on and served by Citrix Application Delivery Management (ADM). From this common pool, each NetScaler ADC in a data center, checks out one virtual instance license and only as much bandwidth as necessary. It does this regardless of platform or form factor (except for the MPX-Z, which checks out only a bandwidth license). The license file and the bandwidth are not bound to NetScaler ADC. When NetScaler ADC no longer requires these resources, it checks them back in to the common pool–making the resources available to other ADCs that need them.

This licensing framework maximizes bandwidth utilization by ensuring the ADCs do not allocate excess unused bandwidth. The ability of NetScaler ADC to check licenses and bandwidth in and out of a common pool enables users and administrators to automate instance provisioning. Users and administrators can increase or decrease the bandwidth allocated to an instance at run time without impacting traffic. What’s more, NetScaler ADC licenses in the pool can also be transferred from one instance to another, and these licenses can be shared by all form factors (MPX, SDX, VPX, and CPX).

Pooled licensing components

Pooled capacity decouples software from the underlying hardware. This approach allows a licensing model that is transferrable from existing platforms to new platforms. Pooled capacity consists of four components:

1. Zero-capacity hardware which has no bandwidth, no instances, and no features.
2. A pool of bandwidth with the software edition (standard, advanced, and premium) that can be shared across all NetScaler ADC form factors–including MPX, SDX, VPX, and CPX.
3. An instance pool, which is a pool of instances shared across software/virtual NetScaler ADC form factors, including VPX running on SDX, stand-alone VPX, and CPX.
4. Citrix ADM, which is used for managing bandwidth and instance licenses. This function of Citrix ADM comes at no charge to the customer.

How pooled capacity works

Description

Pooled capacity is a licensing framework that decouples software from the underlying hardware. This approach allows a licensing model that is transferrable from existing platforms to new platforms, and it maximizes bandwidth utilization by ensuring that ADCs are not allocated bandwidth in excess of their requirement. The ability of NetScaler ADCs to check licenses and bandwidth in and out of a common pool also enables users to automate instance provisioning.

Users can increase or decrease the bandwidth allocated to NetScaler ADC at run time without impacting traffic. Users can also transfer NetScaler ADC licenses in the pool from one NetScaler ADC to another.

License flow

Customers purchase NetScaler ADC pooled capacity licenses and download them from My Account Login Page.

Then, these licenses are imported to Citrix ADM.

Zero-capacity hardware

When managed through NetScaler ADC pooled capacity, SDX instances are referred to as “zero-capacity hardware” because these instances cannot function until they check resources out of the bandwidth and instance pools. As a result, these platforms are referred to as SDX-Z appliances.

Similarly, MPX appliances are also referred to as “zero-capacity hardware” when managed through NetScaler ADC pooled capacity because they cannot function until they check resources out of the bandwidth pool. As a result, these platforms are referred to as MPX-Z appliances.

Zero-capacity hardware appliances require a platform license to check out bandwidth and/or an instance license from the common pool. Users must first install a platform license manually by using the hardware serial number or the license access code.

Currently, the following zero-capacity platforms, running NetScaler ADC software release 11.1 or later, support NetScaler ADC pooled capacity for new purchases and upgrades:

• MPX-14000Z
• MPX-14000Z-40G
• MPX-15000Z
• MPX-15000Z-50G
• MPX-25000Z-40G
• MPX-26000Z
• MPX-26000Z-100G
• SDX-14000Z
• SDX-14000Z-40G
• SDX-15000Z-50G
• SDX-25000Z-40G
• SDX-26000Z-100G

• MPX-14000Z-40S
• MPX-14000Z-40C
• MPX-14000 FIPS
• MPX-25000ZA
• MPX-26000Z-50S
• SDX-14000Z-40S
• SDX-14000Z-40C
• SDX-14000 FIPS
• SDX-25000ZA

• MPX-5900Z
• MPX-8900Z
• SDX-8900Z

• MPX-115xx (11515 - 11542)
• MPX-89xx/80xx
• MPX-22xxx
• MPX-24xxx
• SDX-115xx (11515 - 11542)
• SDX-89xx/80xx
• SDX-22xxx
• SDX-24xxx

• MPX-9100z
• SDX-9100z

• VPX
• CPX

NetScaler ADC VPX instances running NetScaler ADC software release 11.1 or later on the following hypervisors support pooled capacity:

• VMware ESX 6.0
• Citrix XenServer
• Linux KVM

• Microsoft Hyper-V
• Amazon AWS
• Microsoft Azure

To enable communication between Citrix ADM and Microsoft Azure or AWS, an IPSEC tunnel must be configured. For more information, see Add NetScaler ADC VPX instances deployed in cloud to Citrix ADM.

Standalone NetScaler ADC CPX instances

NetScaler ADC CPX instances deployed on a Docker host support pooled capacity. Unlike zero-capacity hardware, CPX does not require a platform license. To process traffic, it must check out an instance license from the pool.

Bandwidth pool

The bandwidth pool is the total bandwidth that can be shared by NetScaler ADC - both physical and virtual. The bandwidth pool is comprised of separate pools for each software edition (Standard, Advanced, and Premium). A given NetScaler ADC cannot have bandwidth from different pools checked out concurrently. The bandwidth pool from which a NetScaler ADC can check out bandwidth depends upon its software edition for which it is licensed. When checked out from the pool, a license unlocks resources such as CPUs/PEs, SSL cores, packets per second, and bandwidth.

Instance pool

The instance pool defines the number of VPX instances or CPX instances that can be managed through NetScaler ADC pooled capacity or the number of VPX instances in an SDX-Z.

Note:

The Management Service of an SDX-Z does not consume an instance.

Citrix ADM

NetScaler ADC pooled capacity uses Citrix ADM to manage pooled capacity licenses: bandwidth pool licenses and instance pool licenses. Users can use Citrix ADM to manage pooled capacity licenses without an ADM license.

When checking out licenses from a bandwidth and/or instance pool, NetScaler ADC form factor and hardware model number on a zero-capacity hardware platform determines:

• The minimum bandwidth and the number of instances that a NetScaler ADC must check out before being functional.
• The maximum bandwidth and the number of instances that a NetScaler ADC can check out.
• The minimum bandwidth unit for each bandwidth check-out. Minimum bandwidth unit is the smallest unit of bandwidth that a NetScaler ADC has to check out from a pool. Any check-out must be an integer multiple of the minimum bandwidth unit. For example, if the minimum bandwidth unit of a NetScaler ADC is 1 Gbps, 100 Gbps can be checked out, but 200 Mbps or 150.5 Gbps cannot be checked out. Minimum bandwidth unit is different from the minimum bandwidth requirement. A NetScaler ADC can only operate after it is licensed with at least the minimum bandwidth. Once the minimum bandwidth is met, the instance can check out additional bandwidth with the minimum bandwidth unit.

Minimum system requirement: MPX and SDX

For NetScaler ADC CPX models

Continued in Part 2