30 Days of NetScaler: Day 7 AppExpert.
What is AppExpert? There must be a clue in the name...
Welcome to day 7.
I was talking to my friend Alex yesterday. He was describing the reconstruction that was happening at his house. There were some simple questions like, ‘Does it have four walls now?’ ‘What about a ceiling?’ It seems that Alex has some hidden talents! There is carpentry, electrical, and building work, and he is doing it all himself. I thought that was impressive.
He then started talking about the tools that he was using. He admitted that they had been expensive to get kitted out, but now he has them, he can do things to a high standard. It reminded me that quality tools can make a massive difference in the output that you get.
The same applies to web traffic, sure, you can pick up something that is less expensive, that is adequate for load balancing. However, do you get the same options for traffic handling that you get in NetScaler?
Then again, maybe it is not able to do what you need?
You have requested some training; your memory might be a bit hazy as there was a football game at the weekend and the team just didn’t turn up! Who would be a football supporter? Anyway, the plan is to offer some pointers on NetScaler, with a series on all things related to the appliance. The goal is to provide you with enough information to be actually dangerous when talking to a customer or client. The number of days is a bit of an arbitrary number, but I am prepared to give you 2 minutes of material. Can I get 2 minutes of your time?
I have spoken about Load balancing, GSLB, Content Switching, Software Bundles, NetScaler instances, and nFactor. Today is all about AppExpert.
Honestly, what are you talking about?
When you have a web service of some kind, it can be helpful to have ways to better control how users interact and use that service. This could be for several reasons, but some samples that come to mind are:
When things get busy, you need to ensure that all users get handled fairly.
A situation came up, and now you want users to be informed of something.
The problem with this technical stuff is that it can get ‘complicated’ quickly. Dynamic changes to the service allow flexibility, however, my goal is to keep this real.
This piece is geared toward explaining the benefits and why you should take another look. At least you can be better informed when you drag a techie armed with some sharp pencils and lots of paper to sort it out.
So what? What problem does it solve?
Let’s assume that your business has a website, it generates revenue. What does AppExpert actually offer? As I said at the start of this piece, with a reference to tools for some work at your home, AppExpert is like a toolbox of capabilities.
There are several options within the AppExpert toolbox that allow the admin to direct, inform, or generally manage how clients get ‘served’ by the resulting system.
That might sound a bit vague, but the details are listed below.
Who would be interested in this?
Anyone who runs a network and needs specific web traffic modification capabilities from NetScaler for an access scenario. It is common for NetScaler to be added for something internet-facing, as it allows the admin to be confident that she/he can have their access managed based on a range of connection scenarios.
There are two license levels for NetScaler now, both include AppExpert and allow it to be combined with other features to make a sophisticated connection option.
What does AppExpert offer?
The current release has a docs page where the docs team has done some of this for me. It seems to be a good idea to reference that, it is available here
Reading the feature list above should offer some idea of the various features. However, I expect that if I can create some examples for each of these, it might make it a bit clearer.
A Responder example
Let’s say you have a web service. You decide that everyone who accesses the site from <outside of your country> needs to be dropped. You will only accept connections from inside your geographic border. How can you achieve that?
A Responder policy can be defined in such a way as to pick out
Continents
Countries
States
Cities
It sounds a bit complicated, but it is not really.
Ok, but what if I need more than one feature?
No problem, AppExpert options can be combined to offer several modifications at the same time.
I’m going to the cloud, baby! We don’t need that legacy piece of equipment.
AppExpert is a great capability, it is something that you will not get with the other native load balancers in your cloud of choice. Or maybe you can have it from a cloud service, you just need to pay for another thing… $$$.
NetScaler is a great option that can fit into cloud DCs and offer those extras to allow your web service to flex as demands on it change.
Summary.
NetScaler comes in many different formats. The thing is, we have a common code base across all appliance types. Killer features like AppExpert give you options you didn’t realise you needed. Fast page loads(always handy!), fair-queue performance so that everyone gets equal experience and template setups to keep the setup simple and repeatable.
These all aid in giving a better user experience for your users.
Whatever feature it is, NetScaler has your back.
NetScaler is all about no-limits networking, I think that about sums it up.