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Citrix today announced the availability of Citrix NetScaler as a remote services blade for the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switch. This unique integration of NetScaler into the Nexus 7000 has been jointly developed between the two companies using the Cisco Remote Integrated Service Engine (RISE) technology.
Once installed, NetScaler can integrate an external appliance as if it were an embedded service module attached directly to the switch backplane in order to leverage the intelligence of the switch itself. This according to the company, will enable automated control, simplified deployment and an overall lower cost of operations while still delivering the standalone performance, availability and reliability of a best-in-class application delivery controller (ADC).
Cisco and Citrix believe the IT industry is on the verge of the next major architectural transition: the mobile-cloud era. To help enterprise and service provider customers capture the market transition and transform their business models the two companies have expanded their collaboration from desktop virtualisation into three strategic areas: cloud networking, cloud orchestration, and mobile work styles.
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The new integrated solution promises several capabilities that include:
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Plug and Play set up – RISE technology promises to significantly reduce the number of steps required to integrate NetScaler with the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switch. The process is reduced from 45 steps with a generic ADC without RISE, to only nine steps when using NetScaler with RISE. As well as reducing set up time, RISE can keep network configurations in sync so that ongoing maintenance and upgrades are greatly simplified, and risk from configuration errors is greatly reduced.
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Reduced Downtime – Real-time route updates between NetScaler and the Nexus 7000 Series Switch promise fast recovery from service failures by up to 40 times. By enabling NetScaler to deliver route health updates to the Nexus 7000 Series Switch via RISE, enterprises can easily deploy shared services within and across data centres at a significantly reduced cost of operation and with greater availability.
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Ease of Monitoring – RISE integration can bring greater visibility across the data centre by eliminating the need to hide source IP addresses through full proxy ADC services. This can help ensure that NetScaler has more visibility into monitoring infrastructures across the data centre and can ensure tighter control of the environment.
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Integrated multi-tenancy support – RISE integration spans the multi-tenancy features of NetScaler and Nexus 7000 Series switches. Building on the advanced multi-tenancy capabilities of NetScaler SDX, the solution can provide the flexibility in supporting private and public cloud scenarios, including the ability to set up Cisco Nexus VDCs and NetScaler instances in one-to-many, many-to-one, and a countless variety of many-to-many configurations.
Talking about the announcement, Sunil Potti, Vice President and General Manager, NetScaler Product Group, Citrix, said, “As networks transform into cloud architectures for secure and scalable mobile services delivery, intelligent automation becomes a core underpinning to ease deployment, enhance operational control and enable true network elasticity. Leveraging Cisco RISE technology in the Nexus 7000 series, best-in-class application delivery capabilities powered by Citrix NetScaler become an industry-first offering to be tightly coupled with the Nexus fabric – empowering public and private clouds to dramatically simplify networks and gain unparalleled agility.”
Ram Appalaraju, Vice President, Products, DataCenter Groupm Cisco, said, “As the data centre undergoes a fundamental transformation, driven by cloud, mobility and virtualisation, Citrix and Cisco share a common vision of a flexible, scalable, secure network. Today’s release of NetScaler as a seamless of extension of Cisco Nexus 7000 through RISE further demonstrates our commitment to collaborate by unifying best-in-class technologies from each of the companies to accelerate the transformation to new network service delivery models in the mobile-cloud era.”
Citrix NetScaler as a remote services blade for the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switch is available April 2014 onwards.
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