New NetScaler Cloud Bridge Makes Any Cloud a Natural Extension of the Enterprise Datacenter

SAN FRANCISCO » 5/25/2011 »

Today at Citrix Synergy™, where virtual computing takes center stage, Citrix announced NetScaler® Cloud Bridge, a solution that transparently connects enterprise datacenters to any off-premise cloud, making the cloud a seamless extension of the enterprise network. As the industry transitions from the “PC Era” to the “Cloud Era,” companies want to leverage low-cost cloud computing, but concerns about cloud lock-in, compliance and data security limit adoption. Cloud Bridge addresses these fears by delivering a transparent, secure and optimized tunnel between the on-premise enterprise data-centers and off-premise cloud datacenters, enabling IT to transparently shift web and application servers to multiple clouds while keeping data and other sensitive information safely within the enterprise datacenter.

Today, security and compliance concerns have largely limited enterprise use of cloud computing to non-mission critical workloads like development and test projects. Organizations are more comfortable maintaining the traditional level of control they are familiar with when critical data is kept onsite in the enterprise datacenter. NetScaler Cloud Bridge is the first offering to integrate into a single solution all the L2-7 traffic management, security and network acceleration functionality needed to integrate cloud networks with the enterprise. By making cloud provider networks look like a natural extension of the enterprise datacenter network, Cloud Bridge accelerates the rate at which enterprise can safely and securely use the cloud for production workloads. Cloud Bridge reduces the latency and optimizes the bandwidth of the enterprise-to-cloud network connection, while also encrypting this connection so that all data in transit is secure. The end result is that IT can keep sensitive data in their datacenters while moving compute to the cloud, and a consistent and seamless experience for the people actually accessing the applications is maintained.

What’s New

 

NetScaler Cloud Bridge combines the industry leading core L4-7 traffic management capabilities of NetScaler with the four key network services that make the cloud appear as a native extension of the enterprise datacenter:

• Seamless Network: L2 network bridging makes the cloud network a natural extension of the enterprise’s exiting L2 network, making it easy to shift resources to the cloud without having to re-architect the application.
• Secured Tunnel: Encryption capabilities native to NetScaler ensure that data remains secure as it traverses the network links between the enterprise and the cloud
• Optimized Access: Network acceleration capabilities alleviate latency and speed issues by intelligently transferring data between the enterprise datacenter and the cloud datacenter.
• User Transparency: Global server load balancing reduces server appliance costs by intelligently choosing either the enterprise datacenter or the cloud datacenter to host the application, and making that process seamless to people accessing the applications.
• App Flexibility: Cloud Bridge also makes it easy to keep sensitive app components – like directories and data – safely inside the datacenter, while moving the compute parts of the app out into the cloud.

Why It Matters

 

Modern IT organizations realize that the three fundamental forces driving the “cloud era” – consumerization of IT, desktop virtualization, and elastic cloud computing capacity – are all interrelated. The end goal is to be able to consistently deliver any service to any device from any datacenter. Cloud Bridge makes it easier and safer for enterprise organizations to connect to the infinite capacity off-premise clouds provide. With this datacenter-to-cloud bridge in place, IT has the flexibility to host the applications and desktops IT delivers through the Cloud Gateway “front door” from either its own datacenters or via one of the myriad of cloud providers available without the need to change the core application or network architecture or alter the end-user access experience.

Supporting Quotes

 

Klaus Oestermann, Group Vice President and General Manager, Networking and Cloud Product Group
“Our enterprise customers want to adopt cloud computing, but are hesitant to do so for fear of comprising their customer’s data. It is a valid fear as we have seen play out over and over again in the news as tech and retail companies experience security breaches. NetScaler Cloud Bridge is an amazing new product because it truly alleviates these concerns by creating a secure, encrypted process for either transferring information between the enterprise datacenter and the cloud datacenter, or intelligently balancing the data so that user credentials are left in the data center and less critical data is moved to the cloud. This simplicity and security of this product is truly going to drive cloud computing over the next year.”

Cindy Borovick, Vice President, Enterprise Communications Infrastructure and Datacenter Networks, International Data Corporation
“Many CIOs and IT leaders recognize the myriad benefits of cloud computing and are eager to adopt it, but hesitant to do so because of security and compliance concerns. What they’ve been asking for is a way to keep crucial data within the datacenter, while also having the ability to send remaining data out to the cloud. By offering technology that creates a secure tunnel between the on-premise enterprise datacenter and the off-premise cloud datacenter, Citrix is really solving one of the primary pain points in the industry today.”

Pricing and Availability

 

NetScaler Cloud Bridge will be available in the first half of the year as either a VPX virtual appliance or an MPX physical appliance. Cloud Bridge is also included as part of the larger NetScaler Platinum Edition on either NetScaler SDX™, MPX™ or VPX™ appliance platforms. The variety of this offering means that enterprises have the flexibility to install a physical networking appliance on premise in the traditional datacenter while peering with a virtual appliance that they can easily deploy off premise in the cloud provider.

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Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is a leading provider of virtual computing solutions that help people work and play from anywhere on any device. More than 230,000 enterprises rely on Citrix to create better ways for people, IT and business to work through virtual meetings, desktops and datacenters. Citrix virtualization, networking and cloud solutions deliver over 100 million corporate desktops and touch 75 percent of Internet users each day. Citrix partners with over 10,000 companies in 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2010 was $1.87 billion.

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