Replace CAG with Netscalers..... true or not?, in the Network Performance / WAN Optimization forum on BrianMadden.com

Hi all,

I've just had an interesting conversation with our Technical Architect. He mentioned that our Citrix partner have offered to buy back our 4 Citrix Access Gateways when we buy a new HA pair of Netscalers saying that apparantly they can perform the same function as the CAGs can.

What I would like to know is whether or not this is true? Currently we have 2 Advanced edition CAGs at each of our datacenters which are configured to use an AAC at the back to control some access policies, endpoint analysis, etc! Is this indeed the case or will the Netscaler only perform Standard edition CAG functions?

Many thanks
Richard

Hi Richard,

That is unusual. The CAG Advanced Edition I believe is its own product and there is no corresponding NetScaler product.

However, with the CAG Enterprise Edition, it is Netscaler Tin and the license makes it do its magic. I could be wrong since I have not played with the CAG Adv Edition for a while but I always thought it was a low end, low cost solution with basic functionality.

The AAC compoent built into the Access Gateway Enterprise Edition is rudimentaty to say the least and is not as feature rich as an AAC server at this point in time, however I would expect for this to change in the future. So if the Enterprise Edition of the gateway only has basic AAC functionality, I would doubt that Advanced Edition would have any.

I would speak again to your rep and clarify.

The CAG Enterprise (Access Gateway Enterprise Edition, AGEE, is the proper name for it) is a "locked down" Netscaler. If you were to buy a fully featured Netscaler (ie Platinum) then you would find it has exactly the same SSL VPN as the AGEE does. The default "branding" when logging in is slightly different ("AGEE" vs "Netscaler SSL VPN").

But you are right.... the AGEE is placed as an "upgrade" for the CAG / AAC, and whilst it DOES give greater capacity and possibly more importantly, HA, the config of the box (and the AAC functionality) is very different.

Paul