What is NetScaler in Citrix UHMC?

What is NetScaler?

Enterprise application delivery within Citrix UHMC, transforming application performance, security and availability

Modern applications face unprecedented demands for performance, security, and availability across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. NetScaler, included within Citrix Universal Hybrid Multi-Cloud (UHMC), addresses these challenges by providing comprehensive application delivery controller (ADC) capabilities that optimise performance, enhance security, and ensure high availability – all whilst eliminating the traditional per-instance licensing constraints that limit scalability.

What exactly is NetScaler?

NetScaler consolidates over 4,000 application delivery, security and visibility features in to an efficient, versatile appliance that can be deployed anywhere in the hybrid multi-cloud from the global ingress point to the container sidecar. It has a common codebase for all deployment scenarios, providing operational and feature parity across hybrid environments, reducing admin, simplifying automation and significantly reducing cloud friction.

NetScaler entitlements (including those in Citrix Universal HMC & Platform), can be deployed in the following form factors

NetScaler VPX provides virtualised application delivery for VMware, Hyper-V, KVM, and public cloud environments. VPX offers the flexibility to deploy NetScaler capabilities wherever your applications reside, with consistent management and policies across all platforms.
NetScaler CPX delivers containerised application delivery optimised for Kubernetes and microservices architectures. CPX enables modern application architectures whilst maintaining enterprise-grade security and performance capabilities.
NetScaler BLX provides bare-metal Linux deployment for maximum performance in high-throughput environments. BLX eliminates hypervisor overhead whilst delivering the full NetScaler feature set for demanding enterprise workloads.
NetScaler MPX offers purpose-built hardware appliances for organisations requiring dedicated, high-performance application delivery. MPX provides predictable performance with hardware-accelerated SSL processing and maximum throughput capabilities.
NetScaler SDX delivers multi-tenant capabilities that allow multiple NetScaler instances on a single hardware platform. SDX provides resource isolation whilst maximising hardware utilisation and reducing data centre footprint.

How NetScaler works in practice

NetScaler operates as an intelligent intermediary between users and applications, making real-time decisions about traffic routing, security enforcement and performance optimisation. Unlike basic load balancers that simply distribute traffic, NetScaler provides application-aware intelligence that adapts to changing conditions.

For example, when users access a web application, NetScaler can simultaneously compress content to reduce bandwidth usage, cache frequently requested resources to improve response times, enforce security policies to block malicious traffic and route requests to the most appropriate server based on current load and health status.

The platform’s advanced capabilities include SSL offloading to reduce server processing overhead, content switching based on application logic, and global server load balancing for disaster recovery and performance optimisation across multiple data centres.

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Proven enterprise scalability

NetScaler supports deployment scenarios from small businesses to the world’s largest enterprises:

Unlimited Instance Deployment: Citrix UHMC includes 999 instances NetScaler entitlement, with a combined throughput limit of 1000 Gbps – sufficient for most enterprise requirements – and eliminating per-instance licensing costs.
Multi-Cloud Consistency: Deploy NetScaler across on-premises data centres, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and other platforms with consistent policies and centralised management.
Fastest on the market: NetScaler significantly out performs f5 and all public cloud subscription offerings – better UX, and better use of infrastructure resources for cost control.

This scalability ensures NetScaler can grow with your organisation without requiring architectural changes or licensing renegotiations.

What problems does NetScaler solve?

Application performance issues: Slow application response times impact user productivity and customer satisfaction. NetScaler optimises performance through intelligent caching, compression, TCP optimisation and content acceleration techniques.
Security vulnerabilities: Applications face constant threats from DDoS attacks, SQL injection, cross-site scripting and other exploits. NetScaler provides comprehensive application security including web application firewall, DDoS protection and SSL/TLS termination.
High availability requirements: Application downtime costs businesses millions in lost revenue and productivity. NetScaler ensures high availability through health monitoring, automatic failover and intelligent traffic management.
SSL/TLS processing overhead: Encryption processing can consume significant server resources. NetScaler offloads SSL/TLS processing whilst providing advanced security features like perfect forward secrecy and HTTP/2 support.
Multi-Site load balancing: Distributing traffic across multiple data centres for performance and disaster recovery is complex. NetScaler’s Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) provides intelligent traffic distribution based on proximity, server health, and custom policies.
Licensing complexity: Traditional ADC vendors charge per-instance or per-feature, creating unpredictable costs. Citrix UHMC includes unlimited NetScaler instances up to 1000 Gbps total throughput.

What does NetScaler replace?

NetScaler directly replaces or consolidates several traditional infrastructure solutions:

F5 BIG-IP: Hardware and virtual application delivery controllers
Kemp LoadMaster: Load balancing and application delivery platforms
HAProxy: Open-source load balancing solutions
NGNIX: Open-source load balancing solutions
AWS Application Load Balancer: Cloud-native load balancing (for hybrid deployments)
Azure Application Gateway: Microsoft’s application delivery service
Cloudflare: Content delivery and DDoS protection services
Separate Web Application Firewalls: Standalone WAF solutions like Imperva or Barracuda
SSL Certificate Management Tools: Dedicated certificate lifecycle management platforms
Content Delivery Networks: Traditional CDN services for content acceleration

Quantifiable cost savings

The financial benefits of NetScaler are substantial:

Eliminated per-instance licensing:

Traditional ADC vendors charge £10,000-50,000 per instance. With unlimited NetScaler instances in Citrix UHMC, organisations can save hundreds of thousands annually on licensing costs alone.

Reduced infrastructure costs:

SSL offloading and application optimisation reduce server resource requirements by 30-50%, deferring hardware refresh cycles and reducing cloud compute costs.

Improved application performance:

Faster application response times increase user productivity - a 1-second improvement in application response can increase productivity by 5-10%.

Enhanced security posture:

Integrated security features eliminate the need for separate WAF and DDoS protection solutions, typically saving £50,000-200,000 annually in security licensing.

Simplified management:

Unified management across all NetScaler instances reduces operational overhead by 40-60% compared to managing multiple vendor solutions.

Disaster recovery capabilities:

Built-in GSLB eliminates the need for separate disaster recovery solutions, saving both licensing and infrastructure costs.

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The Citrix UHMC Advantage

As part of Citrix UHMC, NetScaler isn’t just another load balancer—it’s an integrated component of your complete digital workspace platform. This integration provides:

Seamless Citrix Integration: Optimised for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops with pre-configured policies and templates
Unified Security: Integration with deviceTRUST, Adaptive Authentication and Gateway Service provides comprehensive zero-trust security
Comprehensive Monitoring: uberAgent provides deep visibility into NetScaler performance and user experience impact
Simplified Deployment: Pre-configured for common Citrix scenarios with automated provisioning and management
Consistent Policies: Unified policy management across your entire application delivery infrastructure

Rather than managing separate load balancers, web application firewalls and SSL termination solutions from multiple vendors, Citrix UHMC with NetScaler provides a complete, integrated application delivery platform that reduces complexity whilst dramatically improving performance and security.

Looking for better application delivery?

Get in touch to learn more about how NetScaler advanced load balancing and application security capabilities can boost Citrix Universal HMC RoI. Call 0330 010 3443 or mail hello@clouddnagroup.com.

What is NetScaler?