NetScaler CPX Express – Free Application Load Balancer

Container-based load balancing with NetScaler CPX and CPX Express

Citrix NetScaler CPX is a container-based application delivery controller that can be provisioned on a Docker host.

NetScaler CPX allows you to:

Leverage Docker engine capabilities and NetScaler load balancing and traffic management features for container-based applications.
Deploy one or more NetScaler CPX instances as standalone instances on a Docker host. A NetScaler CPX instance provides throughput of up to 1 Gbps.
Deliver exceptional application performance with multi-core CPX as an ingress device to handle North-South traffic for popular cluster management tools such as Kubernetes.

NetScaler CPX Express is the free developer version that supports up to 20 Mbps and 250 SSL connections. CPX Express supports most of the CPX feature set, except TCP optimization and L7 DDoS.

Compare CPX Express and CPX vs. NGINX and HA Proxy

Feature	NetScaler CPX	NetScaler CPX Express	HA Proxy	NGNIX
Load balancing algorithms	Multiple algorithms & persistence methods	Multiple algorithms & persistence methods	Limited load balancing options	Limited load balancing options
In service upgrade with zero down time				
TCP optimization				
Management and analytics	Integrated solution through NetScaler MAS	Integrated solution through NetScaler MAS	No integrated solution	Supported through cloud based application

NetScaler CPX Express integrates with leading container management systems

Google Kubernetes

Docker Swarm

Apache Mesos

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Everything you need to load-balance your microservices and containerized apps

High concurrency

NetScaler CPX is optimized for high TCP session count and high HTTP response-per-second performance.

Application-savvy load balancing

Load balancing is at the heart of NetScaler CPX. Unlike Round Robin and hash-based load balancing, NetScaler CPX algorithms take into account the actual load and send traffic to the least-loaded containerized app. You can integrate Layer 7 policies required for deploying a service, and you can apply policies to both ingress and egress traffic. These policies can redirect a connection based on HTTP data, rewrite an HTTP request or response, and switch a connection to a specific app based on HTTP payload, HTTP heater, or IP address range. You can combine load balancing with DNS service groups or use NetScaler CPX as a DNS service.

Service discovery and auto-configuration

NetScaler has built-in support for service discovery. NetScaler Management and Analytics System (MAS) ties into Mesos, Marathon, and Kubernetes, and acts as a CPX controller. It auto-configures NetScaler CPX to changes in the app topology. You can automate the configuration of NetScaler CPX to load-balance any type of app through Stylebooks—declarative templates that reside in NetScaler MAS.

Integrated management and analytics

NetScaler Management and Analytics System (MAS) acts a controller, orchestration point, and analytics platform for NetScaler CPX. You can manage multiple NetScaler CPXs at scale and get immediate visibility to the health of apps and microservices. NetScaler CPX streams its internal counters and transaction logs to NetScaler MAS. Several built-in insights provide detailed reporting on user experience, security, and SSL. You can manage NetScaler CPXs as a fleet through NetScaler MAS, with automated per-instance configuration and SSL certificates management. With NetScaler MAS as a controller, you can tie in to orchestration systems, SDN controllers, or overlay network solutions to insert NetScaler CPX into routed or host-network topologies.

DDoS mitigation

NetScaler CPX has proven algorithms to manage attacks that exploit weaknesses in TCP, HTTP, and DNS. By using NetScaler CPX for all app-to-app traffic, you can protect apps from DDoS attacks from the outside and inside.

SSL offload

Deploy SSL/TLS with the most secure ciphers, such as elliptical curve cryptography. Mandate specific ciphers across all load balancers by using NetScaler Management and Analytics System SSL certificate management tools. NetScaler CPX can aggregate connections to backend servers to optimize performance and secure the connection to the backend apps by re-encrypting connections. You can push your apps to the cloud or separate production from pre-production traffic with confidence.