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Citrix NetScaler has been widely used by users for various purposes, showcasing its versatility and value in multiple scenarios. One key …
Overview
What is NetScaler ADC?
NetScaler ADC is an application delivery controller.
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What is NetScaler ADC?
NetScaler ADC is an application delivery controller.
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Product Demos
Configure Citrix ADC for HA configurations??
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Demo: Content Inspection with Citrix ADC
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Citrix ADC: Exploiting CVE-2019-19781 and how to mitigate against future vulnerabilities.
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What is NetScaler ADC?
NetScaler ADC Technical Details
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
NetScaler ADC is an application delivery controller.
Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 7.3.
The most common users of NetScaler ADC are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
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- Recommendations
Citrix NetScaler has been widely used by users for various purposes, showcasing its versatility and value in multiple scenarios. One key use case is the implementation of Citrix NetScaler as an access gateway, providing secure authentication with a two-factor login process. This has allowed users to protect sensitive information such as health records and address data loss prevention. Another significant use case is the utilization of Citrix NetScaler's load balancing capabilities by server administrators. This feature enables them to update or patch servers one at a time without any production downtime, ensuring smooth operations and uninterrupted service.
Organizations have embraced Citrix NetScaler to enhance their application and service availability through load balancing, guaranteeing high levels of service and reliability for end users. Furthermore, the content switching feature has proven effective in routing web traffic to the appropriate back-end resources. Consultants specializing in virtualization have leveraged Citrix NetScaler's features like single sign-on to storefront and infrastructure component monitoring to improve security and performance. The software has also been instrumental in providing fault tolerance for critical applications, facilitating seamless transitions between app servers in case of failures.
Users from various departments and locations, including manufacturing, shipping, and sales, have relied on Citrix NetScaler for global access to their Citrix environment, ensuring business continuity. It has served as a front end for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, enabling remote access for users and boosting flexibility and productivity. Additionally, Citrix NetScaler has been deployed as a load-balanced gateway for application and desktop delivery, offering robust security measures, monitoring capabilities, and an application firewall.
The flexibility and ease of use offered by Citrix NetScaler have garnered appreciation from users, particularly in low bandwidth situations and remote or out-of-office settings. It has also enhanced the security of WAN edge solutions while ensuring a consistent user experience across multiple application and desktop delivery solutions. The implementation of Citrix NetScaler has addressed parking issues by enabling secure remote access for employees, facilitating work from anywhere and accommodating special needs.
Citrix NetScaler has been used as a primary load balancer for web applications, delivering load balancing capabilities and an additional layer of security through its Web Application Firewall. Users have found the wide array of functions and features provided by Citrix NetScaler useful for load balancing, content switching, gateway access, and posture validation, resulting in an improved user experience. The software has also been leveraged to manage and deliver virtual desktops remotely and securely, saving time and enhancing efficiency. Furthermore, users across the globe have benefited from Citrix NetScaler's speed and flexibility in accessing applications from cloud services, enhancing productivity and accessibility. Users have utilized the software primarily in their accounting department for tasks such as managing DST, Argus, shared drives, and other applications. It has been widely adopted by employees from various departments to publish and access applications like DST, Argus, shared drives, and more.
Citrix NetScaler's versatility and wide range of features make it a valuable tool for organizations across industries. The product has proven to be an effective solution for securing sensitive data, ensuring high availability of applications, improving performance, and enabling remote access. With its load balancing capabilities, content switching functionality, and single sign-on feature, Citrix NetScaler offers users enhanced security, efficiency, and ease-of-use. Whether it's protecting health records with two-factor authentication or seamlessly transitioning between application servers during failures, Citrix NetScaler has consistently provided solutions to meet the diverse needs of users.
Wide range of configuration options: NetScaler has been praised by many users for its extensive array of configuration options, allowing administrators to tailor the utility to their specific server monitoring needs. This flexibility in customization has garnered positive feedback from reviewers.
HTTP Redirect/Rewrite feature: NetScaler's HTTP Redirect/Rewrite feature has received high praise from users for its ability to protect and rewrite URLs. This functionality is especially important in industries such as healthcare where privacy is a top priority.
Access Gateway with data loss prevention and customization options: Users have appreciated the Access Gateway offered by NetScaler, which provides valuable features like data loss prevention and customization options. Specifically, the ability to set up two-factor login for enhanced security has been highlighted by reviewers.
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Documentation needs improvement: Some users have expressed that the documentation could be enhanced, particularly in providing specific examples related to the command line and GUI. They believe that better explanations and more clarity would be helpful.
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Command Center is lacking: Several users have described the Command Center as an afterthought or stepchild, expressing their dissatisfaction with its functionality and usability. They feel that it needs significant improvements to meet their expectations.
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Configuration complexity: Users have mentioned that configuring certain features can be complex and time-consuming. They find that the initial configuration process requires a lot of effort and knowledge, and tweaking and fine-tuning during setup can also take up considerable time.
Users have provided several recommendations for Citrix ADC based on their experiences.
Firstly, users suggest that Citrix ADC is a powerful tool that can meet most load balancing needs. It is highly recommended for any organization looking to provide secure access to applications or virtual desktops. Users have found Citrix ADC to be extremely powerful and feature-rich, with great security tools.
Secondly, users recommend researching Citrix ADC as it offers better pricing compared to other load balancers like F5. They believe that it is a cost-effective solution for load balancing and SSL offloading.
Lastly, users mention that Citrix ADC is easy to manage and configure, particularly for regularly used load balancing and SSL offload features. They suggest trying and deploying Citrix ADC to take advantage of its capabilities.
It is important to note that while Citrix ADC is considered a good alternative for load balancing, two-factor gateways, SSL offloading, or application delivery, some users caution that it may not be suitable for those without experience in network and interaction protocols. Additionally, while Citrix ADC is praised for using storefront/xenapp, users recommend considering other options for load balancing and traffic management purposes.
In summary, the common recommendations include the versatility and power of Citrix ADC, its competitive pricing, and ease of management. However, potential users should evaluate their specific needs before implementing this solution.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-21 of 21)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
August 31, 2022
Swiss Army of Networking.
We use ADC for load balancing, monitoring, security, application firewall, and gateway within my organization. The ADC is a Swiss Army knife of networking and a terrific tool to use for load balancing and secure web servers and services. This tool has a very clean interface and excellent CLI functionality for more experienced users.
- Load balancing.
- Gateway Traffic.
- Application Security.
- Networking Segregation.
- Authentication workflows.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Citrix ADC product line offers a wide array of functions and features for securing user access to our environment. We like how this product can be used for many uses (load balancing, content switching, gateway access, posture validation, etc). Delivers a better user experience.
- Load balancing and Content switching
- Boost employee productivity
- Protect applications and APIs
- Slow support
- Convoluted API system
- Dashboard Can be enhanced to simplify viewing
We are leveraging Citrix ADC (NetScaler) for several different use cases. We originally bought it to replace Citrix's old Secure Gateway software to proxy user sessions into our many Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops environments. This is the Gateway feature. We are also using it for load-balancing services. This is for both Citrix products but also other products like Exchange, Oracle, etc. We are using GSLB features to make these services available across multiple data centers.
- Citrix Gateway
- Load balancing
- Global Server Load Balancing
- Monitoring via ADM
- At times it seems like there is a flurry of firmware updates needed to remediate security vulnerabilities which creates some overhead.
- Out of the box automation using ADM is a bit lacking
- Nit picking but occasionally there are minor config changes that need to be done via CLI or GUI but nothing significant.
May 24, 2022
With the ability to host on a VM and use in SMB, Citrix ADC is a quality product even for small shops.
We are an SMB so we use the Netscaler VPX version of Citrix ADC. It acts as our main firewall for application delivery operations. We host a Citrix Web Interface and application farm behind it. Having users frequently in low bandwidth situations, our Citrix ADC implementation allows us to host the apps in our data center while requiring just scene shots and mouse/keyboard clicks from the user's side. We have been running it for 6+ and have had no security issues in that time frame. It allows us to avoid the complexity of a VPN in running all data through the Netscaler.
- The GUI interface is fairly easy to learn making ramp-up time faster than some similar products.
- It is used by thousands of companies around the globe so finding free support on Google is usually quite easy.
- The virtual implementation version of the product runs on a Linux-based hypervisor install so no additional licensing is needed for the OS.
- When used in conjunction with a Citrix Web front/Storefront, the integration is very tight making the passing of packets very quick.
- Even in the lesser VPX versions, there is the ability to have a cluster of Netscalers to allow for uptime capability.
- Although the GUI is easy to use, some of the more complex situations require knowledge that is not common among the average IT person.
- The system makes it very hard to change and update SSL Certs.
- Some adjustments do require leaving the GUI and going in via Putty/telnet/SSH to use the command line.
- It mostly works well with other Citrix products.
May 17, 2022
Review of citrix adc
We use it for virtual desktops and provide it as a service to other organisations. It allows us to manage the desktops remotely and securely instead of going down to the individual offices to manage so can save us some time.
- Virtualization
- Publishing VDI image to users
- Hard to manage with too many different organisations to cater for
- Hard to customise for single users
April 29, 2021
Very Powerful Network Appliance
We currently use Citrix ADC primarily as a reverse proxy and a load balancer for our web servers. We also use content switching feature to send web traffic to correct back-end resources. In the future we will be setting up GSLB (Global Server Load Balancing) to better route web traffic between our 2 sites. We also use Citrix Gateway to be a front end for our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.
- Load-balancing is very effective.
- Makes a great reverse proxy to ensure back-end resources are secured.
- Very flexible in sense that almost any rule can be configured.
- Works very well with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (XenApp & XenDesktop).
- The policy engine syntax is a bit complicated to learn.
- The UI is good but navigation is a bit cumbersome.
- Configurations are somewhat complex for some features.
April 22, 2020
Our real world experience with Citrix ADC
Citrix ADCs are used by our organization as load balanced gateway for application and desktop delivery for both local and global points of presence; the ADCs allow us to ensure a consistent user experience across multiple application and desktop delivery solutions as well as helping increase the security of our WAN edge solutions.
- Helps protect our Citrix app/desktop delivery solutions via shared code base
- Helps protect our WAN edge solutions via consistent gateway access to edge solutions via consistent gateways
- Helps ensure user experience via load balancing
- WebUI could use some updating and be made more intuitive.
March 03, 2020
Citrix ADC review from a consistent remote accesser
We used to use Citrix in a limited fashion on an ad-hoc basis. Recently we have decided to implement this as a solution for the entire company. I'm sure there are other employees that use this for many more reasons but the primary reason is for secure remote access which simply works.
Having this implemented solves a massive parking issue at my company, with +1500 employees this has become an issue with most people parking at nearby malls which is off-premises, which is never the best idea. Due to a fair program introduced and by using Citrix to remote into our work PCs this has been a definite solution. It also assists those with special needs, or just individuals who are unable to come into the office for a prolonged period of time by allowing them to continue with work as normal.
- Secure remote access.
- Relatively speedy connections.
- Older versions used to be quite laggy but this has really improved to be quite 1 to 1.
- Remote PC use could be even faster.
- Unable to receive audio when remoting.
- Log-in process contains maybe 1 or 2 too many steps.
February 12, 2020
Citrix is a must have if your company has a global team.
The company is using Citrix ADC (Netscaler) to deliver applications from our cloud services throughout the whole organization, which is all over the world. We have appreciated the speed and flexibility in accessing the applications we need, particularly when out of the office. We use our Citrix environment from anywhere because of this awesome technology.
- Secure connection while using the application
- Citrix can be accessed from anywhere in the world from any device and any operating system.
- Sometimes, we face occasional speed issues. No big deal.
- Configuration is hard to do at the beggining.
Citrix NetScaler was purchased for our department to serve as the primary load balancer for all of our web applications. Whether it was MS Exchange or an important web server to host for our staff or customers, this has been a product that is necessary to complete our objectives. Not only does Citrix have great load-balancing capabilities but they also offer a solid Web Application Firewall as well. This has helped us add another layer of additional security to our environment to block the top 10 OWASP threats. If you're looking for a product to accomplish this, look no further.
- Support is fantastic!
- The software upgrades are simple.
- Installing the hardware and setting up the load-balancing is not too complicated due to the wealth of documentation they have.
- Rule building is complex.
February 02, 2019
Citrix Netscaler: Robust Tool for any Citrix Environment
I work as a consultant specialized in virtualization and its supporting technologies. In our scope for our client (a division of a larger enterprise) we manage a secured Netscaler deployment that ensures our Citrix Environment is (pardon the redundancy) first and foremost secure. From an analytical standpoint, we leverage the features Netscaler provides like single sign-on to storefront and the ability to monitor other key infrastructure components like our XML Brokers and Storefront itself. In our deployment, our Netscalers are load balanced, built for high-availability for a demanding customer base.
- Secures connection to XenApp and XenDesktop (SSL)
- Easy central management for XenApp and XenDesktop (SmartControl)
- MFA Support.
- Initial configuration can be time-consuming, one misconfigured item can require a reset and restart.
- Firmware upgrades. Have a back up handy even though the process has improved over time its always a good idea to have the latest backup on hand just in case, this has saved me a few times.
- User stability. like with all product peak hours can degrade performance significantly sometimes leaving sessions hung which require manual intermission. These cases are minimal, not a daily occurrence.
September 07, 2018
Citrix NetScaler Experiences
We use Citrix across the organization. It is used for field offices to access client server applications. It is used for remote email and accessing networks files.
- Users have their own user profile logging in.
- Access to network printers remotely.
- Access to network file that would otherwise be unavailable.
- Shutting down the receiver when closing out of Citrix.
- Compatibility with receiver versions across vendors using different versions of Citrix.
- Occasional speed issues.
August 10, 2018
Use Citrix NetScaler to improve your environment
We are using Citrix NetScaler to provide a Citrix environment to deploy apps to users. We can also deploy a desktop and remote access to our users. This app is a mission critical app and Citrix provides fault tolerance. If one app server goes down we have several others to take over.
- Load Balancing
- Fault Tolerance
- Centralized Administration. It's a lot faster to setup a Citrix account than a whole user. You can deploy that same app across platforms as the Citrix client works on both iOS and Windows.
- Citrix handles video much better than Microsoft Remote Desktop Services.
- Cost. Citrix costs more and you still need to have Microsoft Remote Desktop below it. However the value is there. Citrix does a better job.
- Client needs to be reconfigured periodically. Keep your config file handy so you can just import it back in.
- Little harder to troubleshoot issues. It's no longer a single server that could be the problem.
November 09, 2017
NetScaler - Value and Robustness
We use the NetScaler to deliver published applications from our cloud services to our clients. Our own support team uses it to deliver our services, and we provide the platform to our clients. We, as well as our clients, have appreciated the speed and flexibility in accessing the applications we need particularly when in a mobile/out-of-office setting. It has helped our distributed workforce's efforts.
- Provides flexibility in configuration of app delivery.
- Provides speed in the app delivery.
- The full desktop environment through the Xen environment is configurable.
- There is a lot to configure and know when setting up the first time.
- Tweaking and fine-tuning during set-up can be time-consuming.
- Complex Issues with configuration often require Citrix support engagement.
November 06, 2017
Get Scaled to NetScaler
Citrix NetScaler is a big player for us. Without it, we would not function. We use it across our whole organization (manufacturing, shipping, sales, etc.) which is international including the Netherlands, China, and the US. We utilize our Citrix environment from anywhere because of this awesome technology. Citrix NetScaler is definitely worth its ROI.
- Secure connections for all users.
- Delivers applications fast.
- Not overly expensive.
- Solid customer service.
- Web GUI
- Options more visible
- More customization
We provide global site load balancing with high availability pairs for redundancy in three data centers across the globe for our Citrix published applications as well as our virtual desktops to over then thousand users internal and external to our network. Citrix Netscaler helps achieve this as well as SSL VPN access and reverse proxy for secure access to some of our web applications and sites.
- Provide secure and easy access to Citrix XenApp applications and XenDesktop VDIs to end users with customizable front-end.
- Access can be from anywhere in the world from any device and any operating system.
- Users with low bandwidth and high latency may still access our applications and virtual desktops securely with reasonably fast experience.
- SSL VPN difficult to implement as well as manage with lack of fully functional tool to manage users for administrators.
- Citrix Receiver to access Netscaler can be cumbersome to deploy and version stability and bugs need improvement.
- Netscaler firmware updates can be difficult to upgrade with some native features not functioning correctly after an update.
October 24, 2017
Citrix review, must read!
Used mostly in our accounting department, but other employees have used it as well so we can publish applications such as DST, Argus, shared drives, etc.
- It is good for publishing apps instead of having to install on each computer.
- Works pretty well with very little technical issues.
- Easy for employees to understand and use with very few questions.
- Sometimes causes issues with apps and compatibility depending on the software.
- Sessions sometimes stay open and need to be cleared out by an admin.
- Sometimes slow to open apps when connecting.
March 30, 2017
Citrix NetScaler Experienced Honest Review
We use a pair of Citrix NetScaler SDXs to deploy virtual NetScaler VPXs to function as a front end (NetScaler Gateway) and as a separation of DMZ and internal network appliances for specific application load balancing concerns. The internal VPX instances load balance printing, email, web, SQL, and other mission-critical concerns. The DMZ VPX instances load balance public web concerns.
- The NetScaler is a great ADC for load balancing multiple different sets of concerns. Being able to run the virtual appliances in hypervisor from the appliance is an amazing design choice.
- Being able to effectively run a VPX load balanced pair nested inside and SDX is an infrastructure masterpiece.
- Ease of setup is a great feature for the NetScaler. Those that are not strong on a command line will be able to setup the SDX, MDX, VPX with little knowledge of the commandline.
- Some of the menus for the NetScaler Gateway could use more detailed knowledge base articles detailing what each 'switch' does.
- The refresh rate on the web(GUI) are too slow.
- Get rid of Java completely, more modular updates to the codebase, e.g. quicker updates to fix critical issues.
July 22, 2016
Citrix NetScaler Review4U
Citrix NetScaler is being used across the organization, providing load balancing and increased availability of applications and services. Wherever a business critical service exists it becomes paramount to provide end users with the highest available levels of service and reliability. Load-balancing services (such as those provided by Citrix NetScaler) provide this type of reliability and trust.
- 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.
- The companion product that is the Command Center, feels like an afterthought/step child. Though recent versions have been better, some of the trigger rules have issues applying (at least with the tests in my environment to VPX & MPX appliances) and there's an overall unease in trust with it.
- Like most products in this type the CLI will provide the best experience where the GUI fails. An example is stats. A vserver that uses service groups will not show individual stats per server in the GUI (as of v10.5) but will in the CLI. I think things like this are just version deficiencies and will be corrected in future releases.
- Java applets.
- Citrix documentation is getting better but hasn't been the greatest in recent years and sometimes tends to be conflicting.
June 13, 2016
Netscaler VDI Call Center Delivery
We used it for our VDI delivery for our work at home agent projects.
- VDI Delivery compression over ICA protocol
- User Management via LDAP authentication
- Uptime
- Better WebUI for management
June 10, 2016
Citrix NetScaler - A Must Have!
Citrix NetScaler is being used for multiple purposes; two-factor access gateway, HTTP redirects and rewrites, web application firewall, and load balancing. The NetScaler provides the ability to perform all these functions and still leave room for growth and more features in the future. The access gateway, allows health records to be secured with a two-factor login process and also addresses data loss prevention. The load balancing addresses updates and patches that our server administrators frequently do. This allows them to update or patch one server at a time, without a production downtime.
- Load Balancing - The ability to monitor servers with almost any method you can think of, makes it a really nice utility.
- HTTP Redirect/Rewrite - This allows URLs to be protected and rewritten. In the healthcare industry, privacy is very important.
- Access Gateway - Data loss prevention is a must when it comes to health records. The gateway can be customized and set up with two-factor login, allowing the additional line of security upon authentication.
- 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.