Citrix Touts NetScaler for Cloud and Web Security

March 4, 2010

The five new Citrix NetScaler Application Firewall appliances are designed to bring a new level of security to public and private clouds and web applications. Each of the new appliances is built on the Citrix NetScaler MPX hardware platform, the application acceleration, load balancing and web-security system that powers thousands of enterprise datacenters and most of the world’s largest clouds and websites. With the introduction of this new offering, Citrix now provides solutions ranging from the 10 Mbps Citrix NetScaler VPX virtual appliance to a record breaking 5 Gbps with the NetScaler MPX hardware appliance - meeting the needs of small and large enterprises, managed security services providers (MSSPs) and cloud providers. In fact, the new appliances outperform throughput levels from the nearest competitor by two times across multiple performance metrics.

As more corporations consider cloud and web computing models, security tops the list of concerns. Regardless of whether companies adopt public clouds, private clouds or internal web applications, the dynamic nature of these environments make them far more attractive targets for hackers. In addition, sites that bill users for services over the web are now subject to strict new regulation from the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) which protects sensitive customer data. The combination of these trends has elevated web application firewalls from a “nice-to-have” feature, to a business necessity. The new Citrix product line enables enterprise and cloud customers to apply broad application security to both web and Web 2.0 applications, while making the cloud a safer place to do business.

“It is increasingly important to focus on security especially as companies move more toward cloud and web computing models,” Cindy Borovick, Research Vice President for IDC’s Datacenter Networks service. “With a product offering such as the NetScaler Application Firewall appliance, Citrix will have a nice play in two important adjacent markets signifying a shift for the Application Delivery market as it focuses more and more on foundational network services.”

In addition, the new application firewall models embrace the company’s unique Pay-as-You–Grow licensing model. This pricing model enables customers to purchase today a full-featured security solution that meets near-term performance requirements, with the knowledge that as demand grows, the network can easily be scaled up with a simple software license upgrade. The licensing flexibility, available on both NetScaler MPX hardware and NetScaler VPX virtual appliances, makes it an ideal complement to server virtualization, enabling customers to secure and scale the datacenter in the most efficient way possible.

In addition to detecting and blocking application threats targeting traditional web applications, NetScaler Application Firewall incorporates advanced protections for Web 2.0 applications and services. The proliferation of Web 2.0 technologies among application developers is driving the need for more sophisticated security protections and greater native fluency of XML-based applications. NetScaler Application Firewall performs comprehensive HTML and XML security checks including:

“Not only are traffic rates growing at an accelerating clip, but the number of attack types is increasing such that it is nearly impossible for IT security managers to keep up,” said Klaus Oestermann, group vice president and general manager, Cloud and Networking Product Group at Citrix Systems. “Our new NetScaler Application Firewall appliances not only provide advanced security protections, but also deliver the performance and scalability levels being requested by our customers.”

NetScaler Application Firewall is now available on MPX 5500, MPX 7500, MPX 9500, MPX 10500 and MPX 12500 appliances through Citrix Solution Advisors worldwide. Pricing begins at $20,000. Pay-as-You-Grow licensing is available for MPX 7500, MPX 9500 and MPX 10500 appliances.