Original published May 2012

Updated October 2012

Repeater TrainingIntroduction and Overview

Barney Norton

© 2012 Citrix | Confidential – Do Not Distribute

Agenda

• General session agenda

• Repeater Product overview

• New platforms

• New hardware installation options

• Netscaler Advantages

General Session Agenda

• Theory of WAN optimization• Advanced theory of the building blocks of Optimization

• Advanced network design and preparation

• Detailed SDX architecture• Med 2 Configuration

• Futures

• POC best practice

Course Overview

Repeater Product Overview

• Xen Desktop Migrations driving customers need to accelerate large-scale, remote VDI implementations with 10,000 to over 100,000 users

• High resource requirements for ICA optimization

• Limits of current hardware

• Market moves to high capacity large enterprise

• New opportunities with DC to DC replication

• The increased BW requirements of XD

Opportunity Drivers for the Repeater on SDX

• Mediolanum 1• Hardware and software first release.• Based on Corinth Netscaler SDX hardware.• Complicated mapping of NetScaler and Repeater resources.• Management interface to be replaced with Med 2 software.• Based on the 5.6 release of Repeater VPX• No SSL optimization• No QoS• No FTW

Release Schedule

• Mediolanum 2• Based on Galata Netscaler hardware• Dynamic Load balancing of Repeater resources.• Unified management and monitoring of Repeater instances.• Based on 6.0 release of Repeater code.• Repeater Plugin support• Release 2nd Quarter 2012

Release Schedule cont.

Rep

eate

r P

erfo

rman

ce

500 Mbps

155 Mbps

10 Mbps

Concurrent XD Sessions

50

45 Mbps

Branch Repeater Scalability Appliance Product Line

1 Gbps

2 Mbps

1 Mbps

100 200 500 1200 2500 3500 5000

Branch Repeater 8820

Branch Repeater 8540

Branch Repeater 300

BranchRepeater 8520

Branch Repeater 100

Branch Repeater 200

Pay-A

s-

You-

Gro

w

2 Gbps

1.5 Gbps

Repeater 1500

Repeater 2000

Repeater 500

Repeater 1000

Pay-A

s-

You-

Gro

w

Same hardware

Same hardware

Repeater 310

Pay-A

s-

You-

Gro

w

Same hardware

EOS/EOLQ2/3 2013

Citrix Confidential - Do Not Distribute

Architecture Overview: Med I

All VMs use SR-IOV for direct access to hardware -- All sessions operate at bus speed

Hardware Layer

Citrix SDX Purpose-Built Hypervisor

Se

rvice

V

M

Ne

tSc

aler

Re

pea

ter

Re

pea

ter

Re

pea

ter

Re

pea

ter

Re

pea

ter

Re

pea

ter

NetScaler instance load balances for the six Repeater instances

Each Repeater instance has dedicated CPU, RAM and NIC

resources – non-blocking

Citrix Confidential - Do Not Distribute

Architecture Overview: Med II

All VMs use SR-IOV for direct access to hardware -- All sessions operate at bus speed

Hardware Layer

Citrix SDX Purpose-Built Hypervisor

Se

rvice

V

M

Ne

tSc

aler

Re

pea

ter

Re

pea

ter

Re

pea

ter

Re

pea

ter

Re

pea

ter

Re

pea

ter

NetScaler instance load balances for the eight Repeater instances

Each Repeater instance has dedicated CPU, RAM and NIC

resources – non-blocking

Re

pea

ter

Re

pea

ter

UR

I

Unified Repeater Interface

New Hardware Overview

Feature Repeater 310

Total Throughput 310 Mbps

ICA Sessions 750

CPU 2 X Intel 6 core 2.4 GHz

RAM 48 GB

SSD 4 x 600 GB, 1x 256 GB

HDD 1 x 1 TB HDD

Interfaces 4 x 10 GigE, 8 x 1 GigE

Hot swappable power supplies 2

Rack unit height 2

Existing Hardware Overview

Feature Repeater 500 Repeater 1000

Total Throughput 500 Mbps 1Gbps

ICA Sessions 1200 2400

CPU 2 X Intel 6 core 2.4 GHz 2 X Intel 6 core 2.4 GHz

RAM 48 GB 48 GB

SSD 4 x 600 GB, 1x 256 GB 4 x 600 GB, 1x 256 GB

HDD 1 x 1 TB HDD 1 x 1 TB HDD

Interfaces 4 x 10 GigE, 8 x 1 GigE 4 x 10 GigE, 8 x 1 GigE

Hot swappable power supplies 2 2

Rack unit height 2 2

Existing Hardware Overview

Feature Repeater 1500 Repeater 2000

Total Throughput 1.5 Gbps 2 Gbps

ICA Sessions 3500 5000

CPU 2 X Intel 6 core 3.1 GHz 2 X Intel 6 core 3.1 GHz

RAM 96 GB 96 GB

SSD 6 x 600 GB, 1x 256 GB 6 x 600 GB, 1x 256 GB

HDD 1 x 1 TB HDD 1 x 1 TB HDD

Interfaces 8 x 10 GigE Fail-to-Wire 8 x 10 GigE Fail-to-Wire

Hot swappable power supplies 2 2

Rack unit height 2 2

• Group mode

• WCCP mode (Initial release)

• Hardware bypass mode (Initial release)

• Repeater high-availability mode (FTW to follow)

Repeater Features Not Supported on Repeater SDX

• Bandwidth• Consider the sites that do not have Repeater• Make the customer aware of the BW requirements of XD and XA• Network conditions

• TCP Connections• Get the concurrent ICA connection count

• Network Diagram• Stop installation issues before they happen

• Application List• Find out what the business critical applications are

Key Data Points for Proper Repeater on SDX Sizing

Installation Options

• PBR

• Inline

• Netscaler adds interface and connection flexability• Netscaler HA for multi-appliance• Additional interfaces 1gig and 10 gig• Multi homing options for more complex environments

• Remember the issues of Asymmetry still exist

Installation Options

• Routed PBR:

Deployment Options

• Inline No FTW:

Scalability Options

• Deployment options for thousands of concurrent connections

Scalability Options Complex

• Group mode

• WCCP mode

• Hardware bypass mode

• Repeater high-availability mode (HA) (NetScaler HA is supported)

• The Repeater Plug-in ( Med II )

Repeater Features Not Supported on Repeater on NetScaler SDX