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Citrix SD-WAN 1000-050 - Enterprise Edition - load balancing device

Mfg # 3015447-E3 CDW # 4212210

Quick tech specs

  • WAN 1000-050
  • load balancing device
  • 1U
  • rack-mountable
  • Enterprise Edition
  • GigE
  • Citrix Enterprise License Program (ELA) (Level 3)
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Know your gear

NetScaler SD-WAN increases the performance and reliability of traditional enterprise applications, SaaS applications and virtual desktops over any network while simplifying the branch network.

This item was discontinued on October 06, 2022

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Citrix SD-WAN 1000-050 - Enterprise Edition - load balancing device is rated 4.30 out of 5 by 18.
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Good stability and scalability with very good technical support What is our primary use case? We primarily use the solution for network latency authentication. What is most valuable? I don't have the level of detail to discuss the most valuable features of the solution. It doesn't come into my area of focus. The scalability and stability are quite good in general. What needs improvement? I don't have too many details about what is lacking in the solution as I don't work with the solution in depth. The initial setup could be a bit easier. When it comes to networking from NetScaler, we have a continuous challenge in terms of getting and using other software. For how long have I used the solution? We've been using the solution for over two years now. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The stability of the solution is good. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The scalability of the solution is fine. It scales much better when companies choose to use the cloud. How are customer service and technical support? We normally contact technical support. We maintain different customer's clouds so we're constantly working with specific technical solutions and support. They are very good. We have a good relationship with them and have had good interactions overall. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We didn't previously use a different solution. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is not that easy. We needed assistance with the initial installation. What about the implementation team? We had assistance from consultants who helped us with the implementation of the solution. We've had a long working relationship with them and are quite satisfied with the level of service they've provided to us. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I don't have enough information on the pricing or what our company pays in order to discuss licensing in any great detail. What other advice do I have? We're using an older version of the solution, not the newest version. We use the on-premises deployment model. We don't use the solution ourselves, rather, we provide services to our clients. We're testing it for a client right now. Whether the client will ultimately go with the solution is up to them. Our company always promotes NetScaler, and for that reason, I'd give it a ten out of ten. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2020-01-23T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A reliable solution to help prevent downtime in the event of line failure What is our primary use case? Our primary use case is to improve reliability and prevent downtime in the event of a line failure. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature is its reliability. What needs improvement? I would like to see support for additional reporting. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Citrix SD-WAN for four years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The stability is excellent. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? This product is really good in terms of scalability. We have about 300 people who are benefiting from it, spread out over several branches. Our users do not directly interact with it, although it provides backend support for them. At this point, we do not expect to increase our usage. How are customer service and technical support? We have been in touch with technical support in the past and Citrix has provided very good support whenever we've needed it. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We did not use another similar solution prior to this one. How was the initial setup? The initial setup was really straightforward. Our deployment took place over about six months, deploying to one branch at a time. What about the implementation team? We used a third-party integrator for implementation and deployment. What other advice do I have? In summary, this is a very good product and one that I recommend. I would rate this solution a ten out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-08-21T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Lines run Active-Active so we get better bandwidth usage and we don't have backup lines sitting idle What is our primary use case? Our primary use case is for stability and redundancy on connectivity from the branch offices to the company head office data centre. We have a head office and six remote branches. Most of the applications we deliver to the branches are through terminal services. This includes the EPR system, Microsoft Dynamics-AX. Everything is hosted on-prem. When a line between the branch office and the head office was down the branch could not operate. For most sales orders we have a 4 business hour turnaround time from order to delivery. So when a line is down we were losing sales. SD-WAN has prevented this almost completely. How has it helped my organization? Downtime for branch offices is now almost zero. We have 100% real-time visibility into all of our lines. MPLS links have been replaced with lower-cost links, saving a larger percentage of line costs. Overall, I see SD-WAN as a must. And the Citrix SD-WAN product has delivered on expectations and exceeded them. (With later firmware updates we now have good firewall capabilities in the product too.). In one specific notable case that was an outage at an upstream provider that would have taken our Cape Town office offline. And this was on the first of the month when we process bulk orders. The branch did not even know the line was down thanks to SD-WAN. What is most valuable? Lines run Active-Active. So we get better bandwidth usage i.e.we don't have backup lines sitting idle. We see the state of all lines all the time i.e. we don't have backup lines that are broken, that we only discover when a primary line fails. (This has happened even when we had an MPLS network). Downtimes on lines result in a loss of business. This is inevitable given that we run all applications through terminal applications from the head office data centers. In the 4 years running SD-WAN, we have only had 1 branch offline due to line failures where the backup line could not cope with the additional load. What needs improvement? The firewall reporting could be easier to use and filter. (It works well enough, but if I need to give an area for improvement, I think this would be it.). The built-in reporting on the product in this regard is not great. You can get a much more detailed reporting analysis using the SD-WAN center that is configurable with the product. If the additional reporting capabilities were bundled into the Master Controller Node, it would make the solution more appealing, and add better value from day one. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Citrix SD-WAN for four years. How are customer service and technical support? We have used an external consultant, (Troye) to complete the set-up. Between Troye and Citrix South Africa we were in excellent hands from beginning to end. The requirements were drafted between KOLOK, Troye the partner and Citrix South Africa. We had very qualified consultants on site for the cut-over. It was a smooth migration. There were a few complex issues that came from how the ISP had configured routing in the MPLS. These issues were resolved by Citrix. We have subsequently removed all MPLS links. What was our ROI? Easy under 18 months. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? If I was going to look at this project again now, I would investigate the option of using virtual appliances rather then physical appliances. I don't know enough about this option, but I think it would have some cost and give better DR options. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We looked at the Cisco product at the time. (Briefly). But we found the Citrix product to be better because it uses a packet by packet switching, where as the Cisco apparently switched session by session to the best line. This was some time back, and I have not looked at the Cisco product since. What other advice do I have? I used to stress about line failures. MPLS was not working for me. MPLS gave me no visibility into the line redundancy. And MPLS is very expensive. SD-WAN was an easy choice for me. Citrix has delivered. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-07-23T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Good security, documentation, and technical support, but the price should be lower What is our primary use case? We are a solution provider and this is one of the products that we implement for our clients. One of the use cases was as an optimizer in a low-bandwidth area where I wanted to replace the MPLS connection. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature is security, as it gives me the port bindings that cannot be accomplished using other solutions. This solution gives me IPv6 layering over IPv4, which is helpful for some environments. The documentation is very good. What needs improvement? I would like to either see the price reduced or have it packaged with other products to give better value for the money. For example, other solutions have multiple services embedded in their appliance, which gives better value. For how long have I used the solution? I have worked with NetScaler SD-WAN in several projects over the past three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? This is a stable and mature product. We have few admin support cases and the maintenance is very limited. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? This solution scales out well. We generally work with large business and enterprise-level organizations. How are customer service and technical support? The technical support from Citrix is very good. If I am stuck while performing a setup, I can get immediate support while I am on the call. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? I have also work with similar solutions from Riverbed. I found that the documentation and support from Citrix were better. How was the initial setup? Setting up is a little bit complex. It is definitely not done with the click of a button. For us, it normally takes about a week to understand the requirements and deploy it. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? As NetScaler is now, I find it quite pricey. What other advice do I have? My advice to anybody who is considering this product is to first understand the business and the requirements. No solution should be purchased in haste. I have seen businesses with proper tools but they don't know what to do with them. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-04-29T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Provided stable data transmission for a distributed network What is our primary use case? Our use case was for a distributed network. We have customers around Russia, and a customer in the Far East had infrastructure with about 5,000 kilometers between each branch. We needed to create some kind of network that was distributed through data and media or big files. The Far East isn't very stable territory, so we had to use a low-level network and create a good result in data transmission. It was a retail company, so there were branches, and the branches needed to connect to HQ. We provided HQ and each branch with Citrix SD-WAN. We tried to use it, and it worked well. The transmission was good, and they were losing less data. The solution is deployed on our customers' hardware. What is most valuable? The stability is the main feature of Citrix SD-WAN. You can also upgrade the data packages or have less transmission. What needs improvement? The price is the only thing that could be improved. Citrix is not a cheap solution. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using this solution for one year. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution was stable. How are customer service and support? We haven't used the Citrix tech support because we have our own support. What was our ROI? I think the ROI is okay. You have to spend a large amount of money at first, but you could see ROI in 3-5 years. It's a good proposal. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The license was a one-time purchase. It's expensive. What other advice do I have? I would rate this solution 10 out of 10. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Date published: 2022-05-16T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Provides a fluid experience, balancing bandwidth to applications or solutions that need prioritizing What is our primary use case? We offer this solution mainly to retail companies that have many sites and want to connect between them without relying on an MPX or a fiber connection. With SD-WAN, they have all the features and benefits they need to send live streaming information to the database and to headquarters without requiring a server at each site. Our other clients have various sites with just one type of communication, say a radio or a mobile network. SD-WAN helps them to combine and get a better bandwidth to balance all their applications and services. I'm a reseller and I make demos with the product. We are partners with Citrix and our company is based in Ecuador. What is most valuable? I like that SD-WAN allows you to combine two asymmetrical connections. Citrix provides more options than other solutions so you can balance the amount of bandwidth to any of your applications or solutions that need prioritizing, in addition to putting a hold on things that might block in a communication cut-off or some other event. It provides a more fluid experience to end-users when they're using their applications or desktops. It's user-friendly and easier to manage especially for those who don't have much knowledge about the minutiae of the product. I think Citrix is better than Cisco's solution. What needs improvement? I think the price can be improved, particularly in third world countries such as Ecuador where companies don't have the budget to implement expensive products. Citrix is a very complete solution, but the price is not in line with our market. It would be great if they could come up with a budget product. Cisco provides an inexpensive solution and Citrix could compete with that even if it doesn't have all the features of SD-WAN. I think it would catch on quickly in Latin America. For how long have I used the solution? I've been supplying this solution to our customers for two years. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The solution is very scalable. One of our clients started out very small and implementing didn't require any more of an investment than they would have had to make with another MPX communication system or a radio system. They worked with what they had, and then implemented more and more solutions and connected them to their headquarters with a good result. How are customer service and support? Citrix support is tricky in Ecuador. The people assigned to our region are not very well organized. As a result, we now certify our technicians so they can provide support to our clients. They carry out the updates and any patching and deal with any configuration improvements that can be made. Our clients are very happy with what we provide and give us good reviews. We have clients who have bought Citrix from other companies but they come to us for support. How was the initial setup? For a certified user, the setup is very simple. I'm not involved in deployment but they say that it's very easy to implement. It only requires the setting up of some policies and the solution works. We have two engineers who deal with implementation. What other advice do I have? I would suggest getting to know your core business solutions, knowing which are the important solutions or apps that could be improved in terms of communications, and then just balancing it through SD-WAN with any kind of communication that they already have. It doesn't require a larger budget to put in place various symmetrical communications. Licensing costs aside, I would rate this solution 10 out of 10. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A stable solution for reliable connectivity What is our primary use case? It is used to get connectivity between our branches. In terms of the version, we are using version 10.1, and we have different SD-WAN devices. What is most valuable? The reliability of connectivity is most valuable. What needs improvement? I am happy with this product. If anything, its price can be reduced. It is a bit expensive. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using this solution for about six years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is very stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It is scalable. We've got about 250 users in the company. We don't have any plans to increase its usage. How are customer service and support? They have been okay to work with. I am satisfied with their support. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We didn't use any other solution previously. How was the initial setup? I don't know about the setup. I had a consultant set it up for me. For its deployment and maintenance, we just have one person. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? It is a bit expensive. A cheaper product would be good, but everybody likes things to be cheaper. We bought the devices up front, and then we pay for the annual support. What other advice do I have? It is not a cheap product but it serves. I would rate it a nine out of 10. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-03-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Seamlessly combines Internet and MPLS What is our primary use case? In managing a retail network with over a hundred branches, we moved from MPLS to Citrix SD-WAN for cost savings and flexibility. Citrix seamlessly combines Internet and MPLS, enabling us to eliminate MPLS. This shift lets us use different Internet providers at each branch while maintaining performance. The centralized monitoring and easy deployment make our network operations more efficient. How has it helped my organization? What is most valuable? Citrix has made my work easier and more cost-effective. It lowered our Internet costs and gave me the flexibility to choose providers based on each location's connectivity. Unlike before, I'm not tied to a specific provider. The central deployment feature allows easy configuration updates for all boxes from the head office, streamlining network management. This simplification has been a big plus for our operations. What needs improvement? The only improvement for Citrix SD-WAN would be to lower its cost. For how long have I used the solution? I have using Citrix SD-WAN for two years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I would rate the stability of the solution as a nine out of ten. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I would rate the scalability of Citrix SD-WAN as an eight out of ten. It depends on the expansion rates and the specific box configurations. In my company, there are three users, including myself, who are working with Citrix SD-WAN. How are customer service and support? While the support is good, the area that needs improvement is the speed of resolution. We can log tickets, but it takes a good amount of time to receive feedback and a resolution. Enhancing the speed of support responses would significantly improve the overall support experience for users like me. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? Before using Citrix SD-WAN, I had experience with VDI, particularly with virtualized desktop solutions like Citrix Workspace. We chose Citrix SD-WAN because our previous solution wasn't working well in our environment. How was the initial setup? I would rate the easiness of the initial setup as a seven out of ten. The initial setup of Citrix SD-WAN took time, but deploying to new branches now only takes three to ten minutes. The process is straightforward, and one person is enough. I handle the deployment on the master control node, sending the configuration to the person at the other end to upload. It is a quick and simple process. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? It is on the expensive side. I would give it an eight out of ten in terms of costliness. In my region, the approximate cost for the Citrix SD-WAN license is around $150 per user per year. However, the master box comes at a much higher cost. What other advice do I have? Overall, I would rate Citrix SD-WAN as seven out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-11-21T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Offers a seamless setup and zero downtime failover mechanism but needs more features What is our primary use case? We are helping our customers create secure and redundant networks. That's the primary use case. How has it helped my organization? It’s helped my clients. For example, we did multiple roll-outs. The other banks, bank branches, require good connectivity, which is very important for a branch to have. They managed to have an SLA of almost 100%. In the case of network failures, they had very few issues, and most of the links, since they were on a traditional network, used active-passive. However, with this product, they could aggregate the bandwidth and come up with new use cases. The customers are really happy. What is most valuable? They have a zero downtime failover mechanism, where, when there's a link failure or a link weakness, or bad link conditions, they provide the ability to fail back seamlessly. That's the most important feature I have worked with. The initial setup is pretty seamless. The solution is stable. It’s scalable. What needs improvement? Right now, certain SD-WAN vendors work with very strong enterprise-scale firewall features. For example, Fortinet is what most of my customers prefer to have. However, in terms of Citrix, they had minimal features. Now, they have improved things. That's an area where Citrix has to improve since Citrix is not a security company. They rely on other vendors like Zscaler. Overall, network security and next-generation firewall features are areas that they can improve on. For how long have I used the solution? We have worked with them for around five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We haven’t had any real issues with stability. We put it in for countrywide operations, however, and we expected there would be a lot of returns. There are actually very few, and even these returns were out of Citrix's control. For example, we had a few appliances return back due to lightning and the resulting power surges. Besides that, we rarely have failures, so the client is happy. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? In my case, my geography is relatively small. I operate in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Maldives - these kinds of countries. Here, we don't have many installations over 1,000. That said, Citrix can very easily go beyond 1,000 branches and endpoints. They have large scalable models also. For my use cases, they are scalable enough. The customers who are using the solution 100% rely on it, at least for the branch connectivity. They are not quite keen to use inter-data-center use cases, such as WAN optimization. However, in terms of my customers, they use it 100% in most cases. We have helped some customers to improve their application performance with this solution. Most customers ask from our side from a traditional SD-WAN whether they can move to a zero-trust network. It was the evolution of Citrix. We are helping and educating our customers, et cetera. How are customer service and support? Customer service is really good. We have had a few tech support cases. We had to do some version upgrades where we had some challenges. However, the tech support is really good. I have worked across many products, for example, for Extender Top, XenServer, et cetera. The Citrix team has been extra helpful. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? My customers used the traditional BGP routing base on a normal Cisco-based solution. So this is the evolution of new tech for them. They are moving from traditional interest to SD-WAN. We recommend products like Meraki and Fortinet. Fortinet is good, especially for some hospitality customers. We find it quite interesting. In terms of Fortinet, the customers are really keen since their CPs are very cost-efficient, so they have a big advantage in TC when compared with Citrix. Especially Fortinet, people like it due to the security advantage, and Fortinet is influencing this market in terms of network security. How was the initial setup? Once we do the base configuration or the head setup and then the configuration, then we can send an L2 team to do the deployment with very few instructions. We ask them just to plug in the cables and download their profiles. It's quite seamless. My customers evolved from a traditional BGP environment. For them, this is quite seamless. They are happy, and the operational overhead is also lower for them. For a single customer, the effort involved in the deployment varies. Maybe a five-man team could very easily manage the network since the failures are lower, and they also have this failover feature where even when the branch is down, they can still help the customer. Five or six people would be sufficient to manage and maintain everything. With Citrix cloud coming in and analytics help, you won’t need a big team. It's quite proactive, and not quite reactive. The number of people required is relatively low to maintain everything. What about the implementation team? We do the deployment ourselves. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? There are multiple pricing options. They have an MSP model also. However, we deployed the channel or the normal appliance model. Of course, it has been three to four years on the same price point. I'm not quite sure of the price ranges. Roughly, the hidden devices can scale up to $20K for one appliance. However, the branch CPs are USD $1,000 to $2,500. We get everything under the list price. However, especially if you are thinking of having a branch internet breakout, then sometimes you might have to get another solution like Zscaler or Symantec for the proxy of internet security. What other advice do I have? I’m just an end-user. I used to work for a Citrix partner, so we were the Citrix regular partner. Right now, in my present job, I'm not affiliated with them. What we used is the on-prem deployment. They have certain companies on the cloud. However, it's pretty much on-prem for this solution. Potential users should ask Citrix to give firm commitments regarding product life cycles and changes. Usually, Citrix is undergoing a lot of changes internally. Their product directions change, product names change, and many things change. So Users need to check, especially if they are modernizing the network. I’d rate the solution seven out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-11-08T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The hands-on customer support, and load balancing that come with this solution are above all others on the market What is our primary use case? The primary use case of this solution is to provide interconnectivity between branches and optimize the connection. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature is load balancing. This feature allows for multiple links on one device which is a lifesaver when dealing with load shedding. What needs improvement? I would like to see more customization to adjust for the WAN lock-out due to our unexpected power outages. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using the solution for one year. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution is stable. We only require two people for maintenance. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The solution is extremely scalable. How are customer service and support? The support is excellent with quick response times and resolution. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is straightforward as long as you are familiar with the solution. What about the implementation team? The implementation was completed in-house. Which other solutions did I evaluate? Before choosing the solution I evaluated Juniper Networks and Cisco Meraki. What other advice do I have? I rate the solution ten out of ten. The solution is brilliant, the way it calculates its paths and trails is great. The hands-on customer support and load balancing that come with this solution are above all others on the market. I recommend the solution, especially for organizations based in areas that suffer from load shedding. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Microsoft Azure Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-09-29T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Connects branches and data centers in a few clicks, while ensuring fast network communication What is our primary use case? As the top manager and core engineer in my company working to secure job sites, I used a demonstration version of Citrix SD-WAN to enhance the communication between our branches and data centers. Specifically, it has been used to connect single branches with multiple data centers, where communication can flow quickly across them all. So, with Citrix SD-WAN, the primary use case is the provision of wide internet access from the data centers into our branches, as well as letting us manage the IT services through the cloud. Previously, we had simply been using direct internet access in each branch, but we realized that our internet usage would be more normalized with Citrix SD-WAN. Our hardware devices are on-premises, of course, but the SD-WAN management is now done on the cloud. How has it helped my organization? The reason why we went with Citrix SD-WAN came about when we were looking to integrate one of our branches with the rest of the company in a simpler, more centralized manner. We wanted an easy integration solution that would let us deploy connectivity to a branch with only a few clicks, and so we tried Citrix SD-WAN. When deploying Citrix SD-WAN, we found that we could deploy very easily with a simple installation template, and it helped us clear up the configuration to get everything up and running. What is most valuable? The main advantage of Citrix SD-WAN is that it enables fast communication between our branches and data centers. And, with its cloud management features, it also makes the process of adding new branches into our company network much easier. Another reason why I like this solution is because it ensures the smooth and effective operation of the company's POS software. What needs improvement? Given that Citrix SD-WAN solved all our problems by providing us with everything we needed to unify communications with our branches and data centers, I cannot suggest anything further in terms of improvements. For how long have I used the solution? I have used Citrix SD-WAN for three months. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's a scalable solution. Once you've deployed it in the cloud, it's very flexible and can be adapted to your needs. How are customer service and support? I think their support system works very well, and we were also working with a local reseller which was a good experience. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We were trying some other vendors at the same time that seemed to fit the job, but we had to help those vendors too much in trying to come up with a solution for us. How was the initial setup? The setup was incredibly easy. The hardest part of the job was having to deploy during the day. However, with the configuration template we used, the deployment was a breeze. Our communication with the vendor support was highly interactive and, in total, it took us only a day or two to deploy. What about the implementation team? As a team of five members, we deployed Citrix SD-WAN in-house without the help of a third-party reseller team. As for maintenance, we promoted one staff member to handle physical intervention and another for configuration. What was our ROI? I believe that Citrix SD-WAN is a good investment, but I do not have the information to be more specific. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I am not aware of the details of the licensing cost in this case because I was only trying it out. What other advice do I have? The functionality of Citrix SD-WAN is awesome and I fell in love with it on this deployment because it's so easy to use. It has everything that I need, I know what what works and what doesn't, and it has great flexibility in terms of management. I would rate Citrix SD-WAN a ten out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-09-20T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Scales well, supports zero-touch deployment, and helps us to be more efficient What is our primary use case? We are an HR service provider in Belgium. We have 60 offices in Belgium, and we basically use the SD-WAN setup to be more efficient with our WAN and with our spending, with regard to connectivity. We are not using its latest version. I know we need to do an upgrade. So, it is the version before the latest one. How has it helped my organization? Citrix SD-WAN helps us in re-routing certain traffic, for example, local internet breakouts for Office 365. It also helps us to be more agile when we are opening new offices or when we are moving locations. We have deployed a config that is zero-touch. So, we can very quickly ship hardware devices to the correct locations and be up and running with internet lines in no time. What is most valuable? The zero-touch deployment is most valuable for us. What needs improvement? The communication around the life cycle would have been really helpful. The main issue we have had is related to the life cycle because some of the things that we are using were discontinued. They were discontinued within a year after we had purchased it, which is a bit painful. If we had known that, we would've made some other decisions. Reverse compatibility between different versions would also be helpful. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using this solution for about three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability is not at all a problem. In terms of its users, for connectivity over the WAN, we have between 1,900 to 2,000 users. For administrating, there are three people. How are customer service and support? I have not personally interacted with them, but my team did. We did a project together with Citrix. How was the initial setup? It doesn't seem very difficult. It is easier than a traditional setup in terms of getting it deployed, but it is a little bit more complex in terms of running it. So, troubleshooting for our engineers is a little bit more complex. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? It depends on the scale. In our case, it would have been better if we had known about the life cycling steps, but otherwise, it is worth the money. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We did a comparison between different solutions, and we used a methodology from Gartner to make the decision. The decision was to go with Citrix SD-WAN because it had the best score on most of our non-negotiable items. We had listed some objectives, and we scored all different solutions against our objectives. One of the parameters was cost, but it was not the only parameter. Citrix SD-WAN came out as the best solution for us. What other advice do I have? I would advise using Citrix professional services to have your design validated. We got a lot of value out of the discussions that we had with Citrix. We have a bit of an atypical setup. Usually, SD-WAN is deployed over two DSL lines, where we chose to have MPLS and DSL combined, and it really helped that we had help from Citrix themselves. I would rate it an 8 out of 10. If we are in a situation today where we need to make a decision on which solution we are going to implement, I do believe that we would go for Citrix again. I would recommend Citrix to keep doing what they are doing, but they should be a little bit more open on what the plan is with Citrix SD-WAN. We have heard some rumors that they will discontinue the product, and that, of course, would be a pity. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-08-19T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Includes good documentation, easy to set up, good endpoint monitoring and backup capabilities What is our primary use case? We use this product to improve the security of our network. We also use it to monitor and control the endpoints that we have. What is most valuable? The best feature is the backup capability, where all of the users' computers are tied into a central data repository. The documentation is good. What needs improvement? Citrix should continue to offer a perpetual licensing model because it is very important to us. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Citrix SD-WAN for eight months. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We have approximately 60 users. How are customer service and technical support? I have not been in contact with technical support. We found that the documentation is adequate and we were able to follow all of the instructions. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We have not used another similar solution in the past. How was the initial setup? The installation process is very easy and it does not take long to set up. What about the implementation team? We deployed it with our in-house team. We have two software administrators in the team. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? We have a perpetual license, which is very important because it allows us to manage our costs, rather than having a monthly or yearly subscription. A yearly license is okay except that we consider software an asset, which means that we need a perpetual license. The price of the subscription should be cheaper. I would rather pay three-to-five times more for a perpetual license than pay for a subscription because the lifecycle will be between five and seven years. After seven years, we will try to look for another solution. If Citrix is still top-notch then we would update to the most recent version. Which other solutions did I evaluate? Citrix is a good product so I have not looked at other options. What other advice do I have? This is a good product and I recommend it. I'm going to continue using it unless something new is offered by a competitor at a cheaper price. I that case, I may switch. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-03-09T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Enables us to check if a laptop is in our domain or not What is our primary use case? For the load balancing of the application is for load balancing and as a VPN gateway. How has it helped my organization? We have a requirement where only the users who have a company laptop are connected to the system only using a VPN. We hand out the authority based on whether or not users have the company laptop or they can be converted by a company using the EPA, we can check if the laptop is in the domain or not. What is most valuable? The VPN and the load balancing are the most valuable features. What needs improvement? The reports need to be improved. We need to have them customized but they don't have that right now. I would like for them to have better system predictions. My system may be working fine right now but after making some changes, that can change and I would like to know about it. I would like to see better reports. For how long have I used the solution? One to three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It's been three years we have deployed this product and I have not had any downtime or any issues with the product. The product is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We can upgrade easily using the license. There are 20,000 users that are connecting to my boxes because my websites, and other applications are posted on the NetScaler box only. We only require two people for maintenance. One is the administrator of the network and the other person is monitoring it. One is the administrator and the other is the engineer. How are customer service and technical support? Support-wise, they're good. If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch? We were using another solution but it had limitations and a lot of downtimes. That's when we changed the product. How was the initial setup? The initial setup was straightforward. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Licensing is good. I don't have any issues with the rationing of it. Pricing-wise, it is a little bit high compared to the other products which are the market right now. Because of the stability and availability of the product, I am fine with the price, but it's a little bit on the high side compared to the other products. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We also looked at Cisco Load Balancer and Radware. We did the PoC and we found the scale was good, so that's why we bought NetScaler. What other advice do I have? My advice is that if you want to implement NetScaler make sure to get Citrix support for help. I would rate it an eight out of ten. I took off two points because of the bad deployment. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2019-03-19T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A cost-effective product that needs to focus on improving its knowledge base What is our primary use case? Our company uses Citrix SD-WAN for branch-to-branch connectivity, internet routing, and firewall policies. What is most valuable? Citrix SD-WAN's first good feature is its connectivity between branches. The tool is quite cost-effective because it replaces the need for MPLS, which is a bit expensive. Managing Citrix SD-WAN's platform is easy since you can manage it online. One can manage all the devices in different branches on a central portal online. What needs improvement? Citrix SD-WAN's knowledge base has a few missing things, so you may need to seek help from support. One of the challenges in the solution is that Citrix's support takes time since it involves a bit of a lengthy process. Despite the challenges, I think the solution is good. The solution's installation phase has certain shortcomings and needs improvement. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Citrix SD-WAN for two years. I am an end-user of the solution. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It's a stable product. We have encountered a few issues, like glitches and bugs causing some of the devices to fail, while also facing a hardware failure. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Our company faced some difficulties when trying to scale up the solution. I can say it's not easily scalable since it needs a major upgrade somewhere. Four of my organization's branches use the product. How are customer service and support? I rate the technical support a five out of ten. I rate the support less since the response time is too high, and a lot of time gets taken to resolve an issue for a ticket raised by us. How would you rate customer service and support? Neutral Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? Citrix SD-WAN is the first-ever solution we implemented. How was the initial setup? Citrix SD-WAN's installation process can be termed as an average one. Once you have the policies and if you have a new device, the deployment process takes a few minutes to half an hour. The appliances are deployed on-premises, but the controller is cloud-based. In general, it can be considered a cloud-based solution. One engineer is required for deployment. What was our ROI? Compared to other SD-WAN products in the market, Citrix SD-WAN offers the best return on investment since its annual subscription cost is quite low compared to other solutions. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Citrix SD-WAN is quite an affordable product. What other advice do I have? Citrix SD-WAN doesn't need much maintenance. It only needs some monitoring and updating of the firmware. One person is able to do the maintenance comfortably. It's a good solution. The only challenge with the tool will be the support offered by Citrix. There is a need for a lot of technical support required. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-07-19T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A scalable solution for MCN controller but lacks technical supports, upgrades What is our primary use case? We are using it for our MCN controller. We have two controls in our data center; 510 branches have the Citrix Cloud. We are using kind of half an equipment of SD-WAN. What is most valuable? We are using it widely for the local record for SaaS-based applications. Another valuable feature is a local breakout. What needs improvement? There are a few things that can be improved, are domain-based routing and the slowness of virtual parts, and it may be due to the wrong configuration, which we have been unable to find out. Previously, we faced some issues with the slowness part. Apart from that, feature like end gateway level antivirus. We are currently using a NetFlow proxy to establish a virtual position for the NetFlow. Our current environment has many use cases, but we are not using them on the Citrix SD-WAN. When I navigate the NCL part, it involves configuration. I want to highlight this disadvantage. Sometimes, when we push the configuration, it tries to push it to all branch locations. This process takes a lot of time, nearly 30 minutes, to push a single change from the NCL. Overall, I don't think Citrix meets our use cases what we have. This is based on my feedback after using it for the past year and working on this Citrix SD-WAN. However, from my experience, it is the worst solution I have seen. There's no domain-based routing, which is horrible. That's why we are moving to other products. We have checked our use case requirements with Fortinet, Palo Alto, and they meet them. I will consider the PoC or another OEM. There are many things in the area you need to be prompt, like the automation part. If any link or device goes down, alerting notification, etc. We need to perform and highlight so many things to your management. This should be improved. For how long have I used the solution? We have been using Citrix SD-WAN for the last one and a half years. We are using version 11.4.1.27 What do I think about the stability of the solution? I have been working on this Citrix SD-WAN solution since last year but haven't seen any issues. It appears to be a stable solution for us. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We have 510 branches, and we have extended it to 525. In total, 15 branches were added this year. We extensively use Citrix SD-WAN. How are customer service and support? We use technical support, but it's of poor quality. Sometimes, when I call during payment situations, we have to wait for one and a half hours. For example, we faced an issue in one of our branches that almost lost access and access limitations. We contacted Citrix, but it took them nearly an hour to come on the call and understand the issue. However, while they were joining the call, the issue resolved itself. How was the initial setup? The initial setup was complex for me. What about the implementation team? We have nearly 7-8 resources who manage the 500 branches. We have that much staff to maintain this infrastructure. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Citrix SD-WAN is expensive and has a yearly subscription. What other advice do I have? We are not satisfied with this product. The main issue is that we haven't been able to navigate it yet how to apply. We are looking for application-based routing and domain-based routing. We lack knowledge on how to accomplish this. Additionally, we are an event center, and we are currently in the process of deploying the SDN center to monitor all 510 sites. There are a few requirements, such as application-based routing, domain-based routing, and stack-based application, to give local breakout. Currently, Microsoft Office and Outlook traffic are routed to the Internet breakout. However, if we want to implement domain-based routing, we would like any users in our branch to access Google through this specific local breakout. These are the kind of solutions we are looking for. The use case requirement is to secure SD-WAN to protect our branches. Everywhere we have the local breakout. In every branch, we must ensure security by enabling features like gateway-level antivirus, content filtering, and web-based filtering. These kinds of features are not available in Citrix, like content filtering. Overall, I'll rate the solution a five out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-07-08T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Customizable, highly reliable, but could be more user friendly What is our primary use case? Citrix SD-WAN can be implemented either on-premises or in the cloud. You have the option to set it up as a physical appliance within your environment, or as a virtual machine subscription through Citrix or one of its partners. If you have VMware servers or a VxRail in your environment, you can order Citrix SD-WAN from Citrix or one of its partners and deploy it as a VM on your virtual machine. You have the option to set up multiple sites in different locations within the same environment. This can be achieved by creating secure tunnels between the sites using Citrix SD-WAN's user interface license, which allows you to customize data and prioritize your needs. For example, you can ensure the quality of service for specific applications like team applications, even with multiple connections, through the solution's load-balancing capabilities. This leads to accelerated business operations and enhanced performance. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature of Citrix SD-WAN is customization. You are able to customize the solution to your needs. What needs improvement? Citrix SD-WAN does not have the SD-WAN with one optimization in a single license. Other competitors have this option and it should be added to this solution. In the next release of the solution, it could be more user-friend and easier to use for IT managers to do troubleshooting. For how long have I used the solution? I have used Citrix SD-WAN within the last 12 months. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We have deployed this solution for 16 sites and we have not had any issues with the stability. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Bandwidth utilization can be optimized using Citrix SD-WAN. For customers who have limited speed on their main connection, this can lead to issues. However, Citrix SD-WAN can solve this problem by load balancing the main connection and bandwidth. Additionally, for customers with limited bandwidth, optimization can also be achieved through Citrix SD-WAN. How was the initial setup? The initial setup of the solution is simple. What about the implementation team? We have a team that does the implementation of the solution. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? It would be helpful to have a demo license available for customers who want to prove the concept and conduct a proof of concept (POC) before committing to the solution. This is particularly important for customers in Egypt who often require a demonstration of the solution's features and compatibility with their needs before making any investment or incurring costs. Providing a demo license would allow customers to assess whether the solution would meet their needs or not. There is a variety of licensing options from the vendor. What other advice do I have? I rate Citrix SD-WAN a seven out of ten. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Date published: 2023-03-16T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Optimization and streamlining of the management of wide-area networks with challenges such as a potentially high cost, stability, scalability and prompt issue resolution through technical support What is our primary use case? We have a discreet device associated with our mobile purchase, allowing us to establish a VPN. This enables us to securely log in remotely by utilizing the 3.3 certificate server that we have already procured. It offers versatility for various purposes, including managing the entire balance sheet or publishing any product. What is most valuable? It provides the flexibility to handle multiple functions. It allows us to use additional VPNs, offering more options compared to other VPN solutions. What needs improvement? Enhancements are needed to improve the stability. For how long have I used the solution? We have been using it for a few months. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I would rate the stability six out of ten. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability is not an issue, but it should be further improved. How are customer service and support? Tech support faced challenges in resolving simple issues, taking an extended amount of time for their resolution. I would rate it six out of ten. How would you rate customer service and support? Neutral How was the initial setup? The initial setup is straightforward. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? It serves as a licensed registered agent, requiring annual renewal. We opted for a five-year license, and it's not an economical product. The price is relatively expensive. What other advice do I have? Overall, I would rate it six out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-12-05T00:00:00-05:00

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