Citrix Branch Repeater
Citrix Branch Repeater Appliance Software Release 5.5.2 released for download PDF 
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Branch Repeater Appliance Software Release 5.5.2 and Branch Repeater for Windows 2.0.2 Maintenance Releases now available for download.
It requires a valid mycitrix.com account.

The Release 5.5.2 is the software maintenance release for the Citrix Branch Repeater version 5.5.

Supported Appliances

  • Branch Repeater Models 100, 200, and 300

Appliances not Supported

  • Branch Repeater with Windows Server 2003
  • Branch Repeater with Windows Server 2008
  • Please see the release notes for full list of supported and unsupported appliances

The main new feature from the 5.5.1 release is that it now has support for XenApp 6.

Click here to learn more and download

 
Citrix Unveils End-to-End Virtual Networking Solution PDF 
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SANTA CLARA, Calif.- Citrix Systems, Inc. today announced Citrix® Branch Repeater™ VPX™, the WAN optimization virtual appliance that provides a high definition desktop and application experience to thousands of branch offices worldwide, and Citrix® Access Gateway™ VPX™, the secure access virtual appliance that provides safe application access to users from anywhere. With these new products, Citrix is changing the industry landscape by extending the benefits of server and desktop virtualization to virtual network services running at both the datacenter and the branch office. The two new virtual appliances join Citrix® NetScaler® VPX™, the industry-leading application acceleration and load-balancing virtual appliance. Together, these virtual networking solutions accelerate and secure virtual desktops and applications from thousands of enterprise datacenters and cloud providers to users anywhere, on-demand, anytime. By combining all the benefits of hardware network appliances with the simplicity, flexibility and cost-effectiveness of software appliances, Citrix now offers the industry’s only complete end-to-end networking system.

The Citrix VPX solution represents the company’s leadership in creating a fundamentally different approach to the growing convergence of virtualization and networking technologies in the modern datacenter and emerging cloud architectures. By offering open, flexible solutions that work with the technology customers have already invested in, Citrix allows them to extend the value of their existing investments in the network and branch offices in ways they never thought possible before. With physical network appliances, IT organizations grapple with inefficient procurement, trial and deployment cycles while increasing the complexity associated with hardware proliferation and management. IT loses agility in the branch office due to infrastructure availability problems, resulting in high cost and delays of new branch office setup. Citrix virtual network appliances help transform the economics and agility of IT services by leveraging industry-standard server hardware and virtualization in the network infrastructure. By simplifying and expediting procurement, trials, and deployment for enterprises, Citrix improves availability of desktops and applications, and enables dynamic provisioning to meet varying user demand. By virtualizing the branch and network infrastructure, organizations can simplify and lower the TCO of network infrastructure in branch offices as well as in datacenters.

“Server virtualization is enabling a new level of branch office service consolidation,” says Joe Skorupa, Research VP Networking and Communications Data Center, Gartner. “WAN Optimization Controller vendors are responding to this new opportunity by developing a variety of approaches that can reduce capital expenditure and operating expenditure for branch office IT services. As the requirement for additional services in the "serverless" branch expands, virtualization is key to avoiding box proliferation.” (*Gartner, Virtualization Enables Rich Choices for Branch Office Boxes, November 6, 2009)

Network virtualization also improves the economics of cloud computing by providing a flexible and cost-effective deployment model for delivering customized network services. Virtualized network appliances simplify the complexity and challenges of supporting and managing multi-tenant cloud environments. The Citrix end-to-end virtualization networking solution enables cloud service providers to offer value-added services, such as application acceleration, secure access and WAN optimization on a per-tenant basis. Cloud service providers can leverage Citrix Service Provider subscription pricing to offer on-demand network services to their customers, eliminating large, up-front capital expenditures and enhancing the elasticity and profitability of service offerings.

“With the introduction of Branch Repeater and Access Gateway as virtual appliances, we are bringing together the company’s expertise in both networking and server/desktop virtualization to deliver the industry’s only complete end-to-end application networking virtualization solution,” said Troy Trenchard, group vice president and general manager of the Security and Acceleration Product Group at Citrix.

By virtualizing the foundational network services and deploying the Citrix VPX solution on any off-the-shelf hardware, enterprises can now realize reduced bandwidth costs, simplified branch infrastructure, faster performance and better security. Specific benefits include:

  • Flexible Deployment - The Citrix VPX solution enables flexible datacenter and branch deployment options requiring minimum changes to the underlying network infrastructure.
  • Lower TCO for Hardware - The Citrix VPX solution provides significant cost savings from hardware standardization, lower energy consumption and faster new branch office setup.
  • On-Demand Provisioning - The Citrix VPX solution increases agility, scalability, performance and availability with on-demand provisioning and de-provisioning of virtual network appliances.
  • Flexible and Affordable Pricing Model - The Citrix VPX solution provides flexible Pay-As-You-Grow pricing models, allowing service providers and enterprises to offer security and acceleration services based on demand.

Availability

Citrix Access Gateway VPX is available today and Citrix Branch Repeater VPX will be released later this month. Both will be available from Citrix Solution Advisors worldwide. Later in 2010, Access Gateway VPX Express and Branch Repeater VPX Express will also be available for free download from http://www.citrix.com/downloads.

Online Resources

 
Network World highlights Citrix dominance for optimizing virtual desktops over the WAN PDF 
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Tim Greene over at Network World has just posted a great article titled The ABCs of WAN Optimization Savings. The article walks through the various functions of today's WAN optimization devices and how these technologies add up to big savings for IT. Citrix is singled out in the article for our dominance in speeding up virtual desktops and applications, something we have offered since delivering ICA acceleration with Branch Repeater 5 back in February.

As part of the HDX technology framework, Branch Repeater includes a suite of WAN optimization technologies that have been adapted for virtual environments. Since the underlying WAN optimization technologies are discussed in the Network World article, I will explain how Branch Repeater is unique in applying these to accelerate and optimize virtual desktops and applications.

Compression and caching - By default, XenApp compresses all ICA traffic to optimize individual user sessions. Branch Repeater automatically negotiates with XenApp to disable the native ICA compression in order to cache common graphics and data locally in the branch and compress traffic across multiple user sessions. Branch Repeater is the only WAN optimization solution that can inspect the ICA virtual channel to help determine whether to store cached data objects in memory or on disk. This helps to minimize latency for interactive traffic (screen updates, mouse movements) while maximizing compression ratios for bulk transfers within ICA (printing, file transfers).

TCP acceleration - Like any TCP-based traffic, ICA performance can suffer due to high latency and packet loss common on long distance WAN connections. Branch Repeater overcomes these issues with adaptive TCP flow control that senses these conditions and responds by optimizing TCP behavior.

QoS and traffic prioritization - In many networks, ICA shares the wire with other bandwidth hungry applications. Network congestion can 'starve out' ICA traffic causing slow and inconsistent performance. Branch Repeater prioritizes traffic and allocates bandwidth to ensure reliable, high-performance for virtual desktops and applications. However, not all data transmitted within ICA should receive equal priority. For instance, interactive screen data should be prioritized above print jobs. To address such conflicts, Branch Repeater provides the only ICA-aware QoS engine that can granularly allocate bandwidth based on virtual channel priority tags.

Branch Repeater ICA acceleration goes beyond optimizing each of these core technologies for virtual desktop and application delivery. Virtual environments tend to be far more dynamic and flexible than traditional enterprise applications. For this reason, Branch Repeater is fully integrated with XenApp and other HDX technologies to apply the right mix of optimizations for every scenario over any network. And since many of the techniques involve peering inside the ICA session, Branch Repeater works with native ICA encryption (Basic and Advanced RC-5) so there is no compromise to end-to-end security.

The Network World article wraps up by suggesting that businesses consider WAN optimization gear when deploying new applications. Rolling the cost of WAN optimization into a larger IT project - such as desktop virtualization - can be a cost-effective way to pay for the solution. So if you are considering deploying virtual desktops (VDI) in your organization, be sure to include Branch Repeater as part of your plans.


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Citrix Branch Repeater 5.5 - Part 3 - Repeater Plug-in for Citrix Receiver PDF 
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Branch Repeater appliances are great for providing application acceleration to your branch offices users. However, what do you do about individual remote users working from home, on the road or out of an office that is not equipped with a Branch Repeater?

Back in 2007 Citrix was one of the first companies to introduce a software-based WAN optimization client to address this need. Initially called WANScaler Client, our software client has evolved and is now called Repeater Plug-in for Citrix Receiver.

As the name implies, the client is now packaged as plug-in for Receiver for Windows. As with all plug-ins, you can use Citrix Dazzle and Citrix Merchandising Server to easily distribute the software to remote users. Once installed, the software appears as the acceleration plug-in under the "Advanced" tab within Receiver and immediately begins accelerating all application traffic.

Not using Citrix Receiver yet? Don't worry. Repeater Plug-in is available as a MSI that can run standalone without Receiver.

Repeater Plug-in for Citrix Receiver supports the same set of acceleration features as the previous WANScaler Client. This includes TCP flow control, compression and application protocol acceleration for CIFS, FTP, HTTP and now MAPI - also added in Branch Repeater 5.5. The plug-in is compatible with leading VPN solutions including Citrix Access Gateway. With Access Gateway we actually accelerate the traffic within the secure SSL tunnel. In fact, just this week we published a performance report showing how you can Turbocharge Access Gateway by up 50x. Check it out.

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Installation Requirements for Repeater and WANScaler 5.0 XenApp (ICA) Advanced Acceleration PDF 
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The newly released software version 5.0/1.5 for Repeater (formerly WANScaler) and Branch Repeater with Windows Server has provided one new very significant feature – advanced XenApp (ICA) Acceleration/Optimization.

Note: Branch Repeater (Linux-Based) uses also version 5.0 software.

To use this new feature enhancement, certain XenApp or Presentation Server software versions and components must be installed.

Required XenApp/Presentation Server Software components to achieve XenApp optimization

You must have the following installation:

XenApp 5.0 or Presentation Server 4.5 for Windows Server 2003 32-bit with Hotfix Rollup Pack 4
- Or -
XenApp 5.0/Presentation Server 4.5 for Windows Server 2003 64-bit with Hotfix Rollup Pack 4

XenApp client version 11.0 or later must be used, which can also be found on customer’s MyCitrix page, then go to Downloads > Citrix XenApp > Clients.

Steps to upgrade an earlier version of XenApp/Presentation Server software

The following steps outline the process for upgrading your software release.

1. Upgrade your Presentation Server software to version 4.5 by logging on to your MyCitrix account and going to Downloads > Citrix XenApp page

2. Install CTX119069 - Hotfix Rollup Pack 4 for Citrix XenApp 5.0 and Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 32-bit Edition or

Install CTX119075 - Hotfix Rollup Pack 4 for Citrix XenApp 5.0 and Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 64-bit Edition

Note: Prior to installation, browse through the readme file for important reminders.

3. Follow the requirements section above.

 
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