Citrix Systems is ramping up its Web application delivery capabilities with new and enhanced offerings.
At the Interop 2009 show in Las Vegas, Citrix on May 19 rolled out its new nCore software that enables current NetScaler MPX appliances to better take advantage of multicore capabilities in the Intel processors. The result is appliances that can scale to meet the bandwidth demand from Web 2.0 applications and cloud-computing services.
Two days later, the company announced new NetScaler MPX appliances that extend the product line’s reach to smaller enterprises, which often have the same needs as their larger brethren, according to Klaus Oestermann, group vice president and general manager of Citrix’s NetScaler Product Group.
“The Web applications common in small organizations are not that different from those prevalent in large enterprises,” Oestermann said in a statement. “In fact, these businesses often have more intensive Web application delivery requirements, but the problem is that they also need a more affordable price point.”
The new NetScaler MPX 9500 and 7500 appliances are designed to give large and midsize enterprises better price-performance capabilities, but it’s the MPX 5500 that is aimed at smaller enterprises.
The new appliances also work with the NetScaler VPX virtualization appliance that Citrix introduced May 6 at the Citrix Synergy show, with the combination offering improved price-performance with virtualization capabilities.
The new NetScaler MPX devices offer Layer 7 throughput of 500M bps to 3G bps. Citrix officials said the use of Intel multicore technology gives users the high capacity they need to run multiple tasks, enabling them to consolidate their load balancing needs, application firewalls and SSL VPN gateways onto a single device, saving money, space and power consumption.
The MPX 5500 and 7500 will be available later this quarter, while the MPX 9500 will be released in the third quarter. Pricing for the 5500 starts at $12,000.
Citrix’s nCore software lets enterprises use their NetScaler MPX systems to run more Web acceleration and security functions than they could have previously, officials said. That’s important as Web 2.0 applications and cloud-computing services increase the demand for bandwidth and open up the network to new security risks.
nCore enables users to run multiple complex operations in parallel on their appliances with no loss of performance or increased latency.