Just a few days ago Citrix announced the NetScaler 10.5, again packed with lots of cool new and useful features, but that’s not all, they also decided it was time to simplify the NetScaler license structure just a tat. And although that sounds wonderful to some, unfortunately, it has a downside as well. I’ll first elaborate a bit more on the licensing structure as we know it today and take it from there.
What is Web-Scale technology and where does it come from?
According to Gartner, and as you know they’re always right, by 2017 Web-Scale technology will be an architectural approach found operating in 50 percent of global enterprises, up from less than 10 percent in 2013! Large cloud providers like Amazon, Google and facebook, to name a few, basically reinvented the way their IT services are delivered. This on it’s own isn’t news, but now this technology, a.k.a. converged architectures, is available for ‘mainstream’ enterprise organisations as well. Small and big I might add.
Citrix Certification, revisited, again! Solution-based certifications.
As you might recall, last year Citrix introduced a few new certification programs which also offered various upgrade paths, existing CCIAs and CCEEs could update to the new equivalent level by passing only one exam. The same applied to current CCA’s and CCAA’s. Eligibility to update required a, at that time, unexpired valid credential and the upgrade paths were available till the first versions of the CCE-AD, CCP-AD and CCA-AD exams were retired. During that time they also announced some ‘still to come’ networking and mobility orientated certification tracks. Just recently they’ve launched their new ‘solution-based’ certification tracks which now also include both mobility and networking, let’s see what they’re about.
Citrix XenMobile MDM… To DMZ or not to DMZ? I might need your help one this one!
About four months ago I wrote an article on SSL offloading for the Citrix XenMobile MDM server and talked about how this new feature helps us in placing the MDM server on our more secure corporate LAN as apposed to the DMZ. And although I still feel that this is a valid, robust and decent set up, I must admit that the idea of placing the MDM server in the DMZ doesn’t sound that bad after all, considering all that comes into play. During my last article on XenMobile I gave it a bit more thought and just recently I discussed it with a few community members as well. Let’s just say that, for now, I’m in doubt. Please feel free to share your thoughts on the matter, I might need your help on this one!
Citrix Synergy 2014 Keynote wrap-up, here’s what’s new!
Finally, Synergy Keynote time! All eyes were on Mark Templeton as he took the Synergy stage for, what is supposed to be, the last time, since he’s resigning as Citrix CEO later this year. Unfortunately I wasn’t there to experience the buzz myself, but SynergyTV turned out to be a good alternative. At least it was warm where I was sitting :-) With around 5000 people, spread over 66 countries and over 2000 companies, attending Synergy in person and another 5000 following the Keynote live stream you good say that the event was a success before it even started, but to be honest, I didn’t expect anything less, especially with Mark resigning.
NetScaler SSL Offloading for XenMobile MDM… Finally!
Well over a month ago Citrix released the XenMobile Device Manager SSL Offload Server Patch for NetScaler. And although this has been something we’ve been waiting for, although ‘we’ is probably still a relatively small group, for some reason I haven’t read or heard a thing about it. Perhaps XenMobile isn’t as popular as I thought or people just don’t mind putting their MDM machines in their DMZ’s, I know I would. Whichever the case may be, from now on you can securely place your MDM machine on your internal network without having to worry about potential unsecure connections, SSL only! Although I do highlight the XenMobile MDM server patch, the below is applicable to other sorts of (web) services as well.