Likelihood to Recommend Citrix Netscaler can be a powerful network appliance for environments that are fully committed and open to utilizing a network appliance that isn't made by a traditional network vendor. Administrator user experience has improved over the years and will continue to improve with the flexibility of virtual and physical appliances available for medium and large enterprises.
Read full review With proper design, VMware NSX can and should be deployed to virtually any VMware virtualization environment, but the deployment should be tailored to the needs of that environment. There isn't really a one size fits all deployment design for all environments. That versatility is what provides its greatest strength to a business.
Read full review Pros Flexibility. NetScaler assumes its admins know a bit about networking and in-depth details surrounding the applications they are configuring access for/to. This being so, the range of configuration options is very broad allowing various versions' combinations of protocol patterns, expressions, rules etc., all to the benefit of the admin. Granularity. Having such a broad range of configuration options available, while still allowing simple options to be configured simply. The GUI is well-stylized and navigation has a good flow. Ease of control. For load-balancing of simple services right out of the box, NetScaler makes it pretty easy, compared to the range of options available in the surrounding GUI and under the hood. Read full review End to end encryption on the wire. Micro-segmentation. Integrates well with existing VMWare environment. Integrates well with our existing network. Read full review Cons The documentation could use an overhaul with specific examples related to the command line as well as GUI. Explanations in the documentation would also be helpful. Being able to have more than just one routing table would allow the ability to leverage security. Read full review Interoperability in multi-vendor environments Advanced networking and packet acceleration options can be improved Read full review Usability Improve on the specifics I mentioned previously and could be a 10/10 product. It is also a confusingly branded product that I have supported in two large enterprises where IT departments are unsure if the product belongs to the Citrix remote access support team or the Network infrastructure support team (it should be the later) and typically under utilized.
Read full review Support Rating Overall, our organization's experience with Citrix support is that support can be hit or miss. Oftentimes it takes multiple attempts and much longer than desirable to obtain a viable solution for issues experienced with their products. It would be great to see Citrix invest time, effort, and almighty dollars into improving their support and bug fix process across the board.
Read full review Alternatives Considered We chose Citrix ADC over Kemp and F5 due to additional integrations with various products such as Citrix/Horizon/Monitoring tools. We additionally chose ADC due to better ease of use and ability to have the appliances be virtual or physical, with the configuration being a simple migration of code which provided flexibility to be able to do a hybrid environment with ease.
Read full review We use both
Cisco ACI and VMware NSX, and while they have different strengths and capabilities, I would recommend VMware NSX, as it can be used in all VMware environments, without costly physical infrastructure changes.
Cisco ACI provides some of the same capabilities, but not all. It's focus relies on physical networking changes.
Read full review Return on Investment It has saved a tremendous amount of money and manpower by allowing for broad support without the need for a VPN. The security functions within Netscaler enabled our business to pass additional IT-based audits. Having a full Citrix stack from front to back makes our business look more professional both to our users and outsiders. Read full review Ability to move workloads more easily with the ability to stretch/move networks across multiple physical locations. The added flexibility allows you to expedite tech refreshes since you're no longer constrained by the hardware. Read full review ScreenShots