Implementing NetScaler VPX (2014)
Preface
NetScaler® is becoming more essential in many environments and is often crucial for many of the services it offers. Implementing NetScaler VPX™ is a book that covers all the basics on how to get started with NetScaler VPX™ in a virtual environment and how to deliver highly available services and remote access to a Citrix® environment.
The book starts with an easy introduction on what the product is, what it can offer, and how to do an initial setup using the command line and the graphical user interface.
Later it goes into some of the more advanced features such as remote access functionality against Citrix® environments, use of different VPN features, and how to set up clientless access.
It also covers high availability features such as active/passive, and clustering and how to load balance much of the commonly used platforms such as SharePoint, Exchange, SQL, and other Citrix® components. It will also show how to optimize web services with features such as caching and compression and many of the built-in optimization features in NetScaler®.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, NetScaler VPX™ 10.1 Basics and Setup, goes through the initial setup of NetScaler VPX™ in a virtual environment. It also describes the different deployment types and different features and settings and what they can do.
Chapter 2, NetScaler Gateway™, explains how to set up the NetScaler Gateway™ feature against a XenApp®/XenDesktop® environment, and also covers how to set up SSL-based VPN and use the NetScaler Gateway™ plugin.
Chapter 3, Load Balancing, tells us how to set up load balancing against generic web services as well as many of the most used platforms such as Exchange, SharePoint, MSSQL, and other Citrix® products.
Chapter 4, Compression and Caching, explains how to set up and configure compression and caching on NetScaler® in order to increase the performance on websites.
Chapter 5, High Availability and Traffic Analysis, explains the different high availability features and how to configure them. It will also give a walkthrough on how you can do traffic analysis to troubleshoot network issues with Wireshark. Lastly, it gives an introduction on how to secure web applications using Application Firewall.
What you need for this book
You can download a trial of the NetScaler® virtual appliance from Citrix® at https://secureportal.citrix.com/MyCitrix/login/EvalLand.aspx?downloadid=1857216&LandingFrom=1005.
You should also have a virtual environment with either VMware, Citrix® XenServer®, or Hyper-V. If you do not have a virtual environment, you can test it out on a client hypervisor.
For example, if you are using Windows 8, you can use Client Hyper-V, which is an add-on that needs to be added from programs and features under the Control Panel. Or you can use the VMware player fromhttps://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/6_0.
Who this book is for
This book is intended for system administrators who are working with either Citrix® or networking and want to learn how to implement NetScaler VPX™ in a virtual environment for use with, for example, remote access for Citrix® environments, CVPN, and load balancing different services.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "We then use the general ns_true expression to apply to the rest and bind a session policy for the rest of the devices."
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
Get-NetworkAdapter –VM NameofVM
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Here, click on Add and enter the IP address of our DNS server, and leave the rest as default values."
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.