Our customers tell us that Citrix ADC will always be NetScaler to them. That’s why we’re so excited to be bringing back the NetScaler name!
The passion that you — our customers and partners — have shown for NetScaler throughout its evolution is truly humbling to us. With the recent merger of Citrix and TIBCO, re-embracing the NetScaler name is the next step on our journey of continual innovation. As the general manager of NetScaler, I’m proud to lead a team that is as excited as I am to innovate on this pioneering application delivery and security solution.
75 percent of internet users rely on NetScaler every day
Originally built as a TCP multiplexer, NetScaler was born in the early days of the internet to help giants of the web scale their application performance and accelerate their content delivery. Through efficient connection management, NetScaler dramatically reduced back-end server requirements. This efficiency reduced total cost of ownership for some of the largest internet companies at the time — most of whom remain NetScaler customers to this day.
As NetScaler’s adoption skyrocketed, it became the linchpin of fast and secure internet transactions. Today 75 percent of internet users rely on NetScaler every time they make an online purchase, execute a stock trade, read the news, and so much more.
Trailblazing innovation since day one
Continual innovation made NetScaler a trailblazer in the industry and enabled it to spend a decade as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. To best serve its expanding customer base, NetScaler hit the innovation overdrive button early on to deliver on a long list of firsts including:
- 2001 — NetScaler introduced the first general purpose CPU-driven load balancer with the performance of ASICs. The single-pass architecture improved performance and lowered TCO.
- 2002 — NetScaler became the first ADC to integrate SSL acceleration, which enhanced application performance, improved server resources utilization and lowered TCO.
- 2008 — NetScaler breaks the shackles of single CPU to use multiple cores, taking advantage of the seismic shift in processor development. This enabled ADC performance to scale linearly to meet the demands of expanding customer demand for application performance.
- 2010 — NetScaler introduces the world’s first fully featured virtual application delivery controller (ADC), providing customers the ultimate flexibility to consume ADC functionality to suit their needs.
Fast forward to the present …
- 2021 — NetScaler introduces intent-based application delivery based on policies that automate orchestration for faster deployment and fewer manual configuration errors.
The Citrix era: Scaling and optimizing the delivery of virtual apps and desktops
Citrix’s 2005 acquisition of NetScaler served, in part, to bolster the performance and security of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. NetScaler became the gateway for secure remote access to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops with ICA Proxy and, by validating the device and user, provided context to restrict users to authorized applications.
Adding NetScaler to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops implementations enabled customers to scale their virtual application and desktop delivery set up. Additionally, with specifically crafted health monitoring, NetScaler provides high availability to the many components that deliver the Citrix suite. NetScaler’s GSLB functionality extended this availability by ensuring that the loss of a datacenter did not impact productivity.
Further, as a gatekeeper, NetScaler is uniquely positioned and has total visibility into Citrix sessions. Collation and analysis of the transaction telemetry via HDX insight and Gateway Insight provide a holistic understanding of the Citrix environment and enable customers to better secure and optimize the app experience for their end users.
New company, new NetScaler
The acquisition of Citrix by a private company gives us the opportunity to focus on doing what’s best for our customers. We plan to invest more into NetScaler, which includes enhancing the integration with Citrix VDI and DaaS solutions as well as continuing to develop the functionality that our traditional NetScaler customers need to modernize their IT. We’ve launched a new NetScaler Community where users can get help on how to modernize their IT with NetScaler.
These developments, coupled with the exclusive understanding of the requirements of both internet businesses and the enterprise, is why NetScaler is perfectly positioned to solve the new issues and challenges both segments will face in the next decade. And, it’s why we believe it will become the proxy of choice for both internet businesses and the enterprise.
All-in-one application delivery, insights, and security
NetScaler’s long history as the application delivery controller of choice for Fortune 500 companies who rely on it for both employee-facing and customer-facing applications is no accident. By continually evolving to improve performance gains, the depth and breadth of data insights, and security capabilities, NetScaler has helped enterprises efficiently consolidate their application delivery and security infrastructure.
Application delivery
As a fully featured ADC, NetScaler has the right feature set to ensure applications are delivered effectively and are always available. NetScaler offers the ultimate in choice and flexibility with the broadest array of form factors to meet customers’ diverse application deployment needs. And the single code base provides operational consistency wherever your application is deployed — on-premises, public cloud, at the edge — and affords easy migration between environments.
Application insights
NetScaler sees every application interaction and provides actionable insight to aid performance, troubleshooting and capacity planning. NetScaler can provide the transaction telemetry in multiple formats (Appflow, Logstream, IPFIX) to any other third-party or homegrown tool for subsequent analysis. NetScaler’s return enables us to double down on integration so that our customers have the freedom to choose the tools that suit them best.
Application security
Analyst firms Forrester, Frost and Sullivan, and GigaOm recognize NetScaler as a leader in application security thanks to its single-pass architecture that enables customers to reap the benefits of security along with a line-rate WAF performance that is unparalleled in the industry. As a consolidated application delivery and security platform, NetScaler delivers comprehensive protection with WAF, bot management, and API security across all types of application architectures and deployment scenarios.
Proud to be back
NetScaler as a product and as a brand has been trusted by web giants and across the enterprise both. It is the brand that fronts 200,000 websites across the globe. It is the brand that delivers enterprise applications to employees across the globe. It is the brand that optimizes and secures the application end-user experience for both your workforce and your customers. NetScaler is rightly revered and it’s back!