NetScaler SD-WAN service now available to all CSPs and appliance options expanded to include hardware appliances
During the first half of 2017, Citrix piloted a new type of offering in the Citrix Service Provider partner (CSP) program, letting a number of CSPs evaluate how the Citrix NetScaler SD-WAN solution could augment their XenDesktop/XenApp offering to ensure a better user experience for their customers while also lowering the end customers’ WAN costs.
The pilot was a great success, and in a recent blog post, a fellow Citrite highlighted how RapidScale was rolling out an SD-WAN service based upon NetScaler SD-WAN to improve the quality of the applications they deliver, including Microsoft Skype. Multiple CSPs are rolling out SD-WAN services, including Zumasys, which helps companies of every size achieve performance and reliability for their business-critical applications on premises and in the cloud.
NetScaler SD-WAN service now available to all CSPs
With the success of these initial partners, we’re excited to make this program available to all our CSPs, giving them a solution to improve the quality and reliability of the applications they offer to their customers and allowing them to expand into offering managed network services.
Whether the applications are hosted in a data center, co-lo or the cloud, NetScaler SD-WAN creates a reliable connection from the CSP’s customer to the application, aggregating multiple network connections into a single, software-defined virtual path, selecting the best route for each individual application, and immediately moving traffic off of poor performing links. CSPs using NetScaler SD-WAN can make sure that their customer never lose connection to the application.
Program expanded to include hardware appliances
One of the things we heard consistently during the pilots was that having NetScaler SD-WAN hardware appliances available to our CSPs was a preferred solution for deployment at their customer locations. In the CSP data center, virtual appliances makes sense, as this allows our partners to rapidly scale up in a cost-effective manner. On the other hand, at their customer location, it was important to have a tightly integrated appliance solution that made deployment, configuration, and troubleshooting far easier to perform. This single appliance can provide SD-WAN services as well as routing and firewall to allow the CSP to offer a full suite of managed network service.
Like any good partner, Citrix responded, and I am pleased to announce that our CSPs now also have access to NetScaler SD-WAN hardware appliances that leverages an acquisition and licensing model that is similar to the virtual appliances in the program. The Citrix CSP program was built around the idea of flexible software licensing options that enable the provider to cost effectively standup XenApp/XenDesktop, thereby aligning licensing costs with their service revenue. Now they can enjoy a similar business model as they expand to SD-WAN services.
