Organizations with globally distributed workforces rely on secure, low-latency access to business-critical applications to get their work done. And IT network teams are responsible for determining the best way to deliver digital workspaces, applications for productivity, and collaboration to keep hybrid workers productive.

For organizations to scale globally using the cloud, network teams must configure and manage complex networks across multiple sites and users using reliable connectivity. This can rapidly become a complex environment to provision and maintain across the cloud, on-prem datacenters, and branch locations.

Citrix SD-WAN is the core networking capability of the Citrix unified approach to a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture. A unified approach makes it easy for IT to enable secure, resilient, and automated connectivity between branch locations, hybrid workers and applications hosted in Google Cloud.

Google Cloud makes it easy for your IT team to deploy, manage, and scale networks with Google Cloud Network Connectivity Center. Network Connectivity Center reduces operational complexity through a simple, centralized connectivity management model. Network Connectivity Center enables administrators to easily create, manage, and connect on-premises networks to Google Cloud Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs). For global reach, Network Connectivity Center leverages Google Cloud’s global backbone to provide site-to-site connectivity.

Benefits of Citrix SD-WAN and Google Cloud Network Connectivity Center

Today, we are excited to announce the integration of Citrix SD-WAN with Google Cloud Network Connectivity Center. Together, Citrix SD-WAN and Google Cloud Network Connectivity Center enable IT teams to simplify network architecture for site-to-cloud and site-to-site connectivity. This integrated and automated approach helps IT to rapidly scale networks to Google Cloud and ensure that your hybrid workforce is secure and always connected. Key benefits are:

1) Automate connectivity into Google Cloud

Managing connectivity in Google Cloud is simplified using the NCC hub-and-spoke model. All VPCs are connected to the Google Cloud Network Connectivity Center Hub.

  • There is no longer the need to manually peer VPCs together as the Network Connectivity Center acts as the connection point for all VPCs.
  • Citrix SD-WAN can directly BGP peer with Cloud Router to exchange routes without the need for IPsec tunnels. Once it learns the BGP routes, the Citrix SD-WAN Router Appliance advertises those routes to all SD-WAN-connected branches.

2) Low latency access to Google Cloud

Hybrid workers at home or in branch offices can now get faster access to their workloads and applications hosted in Google Cloud wherever they are located. Google Cloud’s global network makes it easy to on-ramp to the nearest Google Cloud data center using Citrix SD-WAN for resilient last-mile connectivity.

3) Last mile optimization of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops from Google Cloud

Only Citrix SD-WAN has visibility into HDX traffic to provide granular QoS optimization of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops between Google Cloud and hybrid workers at home or in the branch office.

  • Higher resilience and performance for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops by using selective-packet duplication, bidirectional QoS, and link bonding with prioritization of individual HDX traffic streams and sharing of session bandwidth over the WAN.
  • Higher productivity and reduced downtime with faster troubleshooting of VDI sessions using site and user-level monitoring and reporting through the SD-WAN Orchestrator.

With this exciting new integration hybrid workers everywhere get fast, low latency access to enterprise workloads, desktops-as-a-service (DaaS), or Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops by leveraging Google Cloud’s global backbone using Citrix SD-WAN. Automation enables IT network operations to be more efficient, enabling admins to quickly set up highly available connections to virtual Citrix SD-WANs in Google Cloud VPCs while managing the entire network from the cloud-hosted Citrix orchestration service.

Learn more about how to deploy Citrix SD-WAN with Google Cloud Network Connectivity Center using this deployment guide.

Get started today with a demo of Citrix SD-WAN.