Citrix announced the release of the 11.0 firmware for their SD-WAN appliances on Monday. Contained in this new firmware are some nice features that I really couldn’t wait to share with everyone!
Scale
So let’s talk Scale. Remember, Citrix does not release scale numbers without extensive testing. In the 11.0 version of the firmware they can officially support 6000 nodes in one network. This is an increase from 2500 nodes in the previous version. What this means is you can now run 6000 nodes under one Master Control Node (MCN). There would still be a need for Regional Control Nodes (RCN) which is very understandable as the subordinate devices rely heavily on updates from their RCN for updating dynamic routing like OSPF or BGP and for ensuring they have the most recent update to the configuration file and firmware.
Hardware
Of course we are getting some new hardware options. First, they are releasing a new 6100 hardware platform which can now handle up to 10 GB of traffic. You can bet you’ll probably need an HA pair of these if you have 6000 nodes. Additionally, they have added support for deploying an SE version of their appliance in Google Cloud Platform. This was already possible on AWS and Azure. And you can now provision an Azure instance of the SD-WAN appliance from SD Wan Center. All you will need is an active subscription and the credentials etc. Finally, you can now run a Palo Alto firewall VM on the 1100 SE appliance.
Networking
Networking is getting some new features too. My favorite addition is Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP). LACP is now supported for link redundancy. This is targeted at devices installed in a one arm configuration like in a data center. Only Active/Standby is supported with this release. Adding on to their Office 365 support, they have added Auto-create capabilities for the Proxy Automatic Configuration (PAC) for deployment to the endpoints so the Office 365 can be broken out locally to take the shortest route to the nearest connection point. This is in cooperation with enhancements offered by Microsoft to improve Office 365 performance for branch connected users. These are just my favorite two of several improvements in the networking.
Management
As far as management goes, this new firmware will add some in-band management capabilities to the already existing out of band port. Unfortunately we only get a couple of protocols to start with, but they are the the most common (SSH and WebUI). A backup management interface which can be utilized to send management traffic out to Orchestrator. Citrix has also added a new Security Admin role for those customers who need to grant security access but do not want them having full access. Best of all, they have added in some reports based on the HDX protocol for specific user name or virtual/published desktop.
I am only highlighting a few of my favorite capabilities added in the new version. The release notes can be found here. All in all I’d say I am glad to see the 11.0 release of Citrix SD-WAN firmware. Valerie DeMarino wrote more about the Fast Path to the Cloud. And I have posted earlier about how you can take advantage of SD-WAN. You can find out more about Citrix SD-WAN here. And you can see a demo of SD-WAN in the cloud here.