The new NetScaler T1000 incorporates the ByteMobile optimization software within the NetScaler appliance for improved mobile traffic handling.
Mikko Disini, Director of Product Management, NetScaler
Citrix has announced the availability of a new version of the NetScaler T1000 series which integrates its ByteMobile optimization technology directly into the NetScaler architecture. The new architecture has improved scalability and lower cost per GB capacity.
Citrix originally acquired ByteMobile four years ago to make them more attractive to the carrier market by managing mobile traffic better. Shortly afterwards, Citrix introduced a T1000 product, but that product was rather different from this one.
“ByteMobile is a platform deployed as a chassis with blades running the optimization software, while NetScaler is an ADC [application delivery controller] load balancer that sits with it,” said Mikko Disini, Director of Product Management, Citrix NetScaler. “With the ByteMobile T1000 that was introduced then, our target was to enter the mobile court.”
What Citrix is doing now with the new NetScaler T1000 is bringing the ByteMobile technology directly into the Netscaler appliance, combining ByteMobile’s optimization technology for enhanced mobile subscriber experience with the NetScaler ADC technology for improved network efficiency.
“We are now integrating the ByteMobile functionality into Netscaler, and the T1000 is now the NetScaler T1000, and is a combined platform,” Disini said. “We are moving the ByteMobile optimization functionality to NetScaler.”
Disini indicated that the ByteMobile platform will be much diminished over time as a result, because it will only be needed for some specific carrier use cases. Those use cases will, however, result in the ByteMobile product remaining in production for the foreseeable future,
“This move means that the footprint of NetScaler will grow and grow and grow, Disini said. “We will still have the ByteMobile chassis, but it will be a smaller and smaller percentage of the mobile traffic.
“As we move the ByteMobile optimization technology into NetScaler, new software packages will be created which will embed the ByteMobile technology,” Disini added.
This new, combined Citrix solution significantly improves the economics of mobile traffic handling, which has increasingly become a pain point with the rise of encrypted mobile video and content, and the build-out of LTE and LTE-advanced networks. With the integration of the optimization capabilities, the new NetScaler T1000 platform combines subscriber-aware steering, load balancing, CGNAT and unique traffic identification and optimization technology in a single platform.
“The optimization technology in ByteMobile that only it has, when combined into NetScaler, makes it a superior product to anybody else in the market, either physical or virtual,” Disini said.
Consolidating the multiple functions on a single platform lets operators simplify S/Gi-LAN deployment and reduce complexity and inefficiency. The most impactful consolidated scenario is that of carrier-grade network address translation (CGNAT), data-plane load balancing, optimization and traffic steering.
“Our partners who will take this to market are mainly NEPs [Networking Equipment Providers], and system integrators, and they will benefit by the way they this will simplify the deployment in the mobile core for NetScaler technology,” Disini said.
NetScaler T1000 comes in four models, which support from 20 Gbps to 100 Gbps and 100 Gbps to 160 Gbps. Paygrow options allow license upgrades to higher throughputs. Clustering of appliances can scale capacity up to 3.3 Tbps.
Citrix NetScaler T1000 will be generally available in Q1 2016.
