Learn how to implement new features that will enhance application delivery with the NetScaler Validated Reference Design Practice.
Have you been looking for a way to get more performance out of your applications or wanting to make them more secure and wish that you could find and implement the right feature in NetScaler to get the job done? The NetScaler product team has the answer to your challenge with our new program.
At the beginning of 2017, the NetScaler Product organization created the Validated Reference Design (VRD) program to deliver a validated method for using and implementing NetScaler features. A key driver of the program is to ensure that our customers have the proper understanding of what features to use to solve their application delivery challenges and that they have a validated implementation reference for NetScaler the features so that they can properly put them to use.
But before I get into specific feature topics, let’s take a quick look at how the program is structured. In a nutshell, we have 4 major components of the VRDs that are delivered for you by the product management and engineering teams.
Use Case Definitions:
Use case definitions are the first components of the VRD document. Use cases are taken from real-world situations that come from talking with our customers. They are defined by the Product Managers for each of the features contained in a VRD. We start with explaining a use case and then describe the intent of the feature to be implemented as an answer to it.
This precise explanation in the VRD document tells the customer what to expect to see addressed by implementing the feature.
Pre-Requisites and Co-Dependencies:
Sometime, we have NetScaler features that are entirely stand-alone to NetScaler functionality and are enhancements or additions to specific features, like traffic management or SSL. However, many times we have features like Unified Gateway and AAA traffic management that require additional Citrix components like StoreFront, XenApp and XenDesktop components, or SAML Service Provider information for assertion attribute mapping.
This section addresses and references any of the components that NetScaler will interact with when configuring the VRD feature for a defined use case.
Configuration Steps:
The benefit of a Validated Reference Design is that we actually configure and test the VRD before we publish the information so that our customers can rely on the design when they put it in to production.
This means that the VRD document has been socialized with Product Management, Dev/Test, Engineering and our SME organization for validation. We use the configuration references in the VRD document as a way to communicate confidence to our customers that the features are real and validated. We place those feature specific steps in this section.
Reference and Troubleshooting:
The final portion of the VRD document contains an area to reference any of those third party components or configurations that may need to be considered. This is where you can find the corresponding links to other vendors like Cisco, Microsoft, etc. for any related material.
We also learn how the features work as we produce each VRD document and we add troubleshooting tips or examples, new commands introduced with a feature, or any other relevant information that will help our customers to understand and implement the feature.
I have included the first four VRD documents as reference and you can expect the program to continue with more VRDs as the release cycles of NetScaler continue over time.
Find out more about VRD, including:
- Validated Reference Design NetScaler and Amazon AWS
- Validated Reference Design NetScaler and Microsoft Azure
- Validated Reference Design Admin Partitions
- Validated Reference Design NetScaler SDX Clustering
- Validated Reference Design AAA Traffic Module
- Validated Reference Design NetScaler SSL Profiles
- Validated Reference Design NetScaler CPX and Citrix MAS
- Validated Reference Design NetScaler SDX Platforms v.12 Updates
