Citrix NetScaler version Management and selection

With the rapid development of Citrix NetScaler, there are many people in the maintenance of equipment often do not understand how NetScaler software version is how to view and choose, whether the current software needs to upgrade, the current software is stable and so on. Based on the above questions, this article briefly describes the NetScaler software version of the relevant situation.

How to choose a version

After logging into the firmware download page of the Citrix official website, you can see the following page to select the version. So what are the meanings of these suffixes?

The standard version without the suffix , for example, 11.0, 11.1.

Safe Harbor is a secure version, generally a strongly recommended version after a small version is stable

NDPP is a version of the composite NDPP specification (not available in China)

. E is a specific version that is reinforced or supplemented for a particular scenario

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So how do you choose which version?

In most cases, the generic version is selected first.

Versions below 11.0:

There will be safe harbor this version is recommended. Although it is a recommended version, will we have to use this version? Obviously there is a better choice. Consider the example:

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10.5 Bulid 61.11 is the recommended version, if you see that this version is the first version (that is, the 62.9 version has not yet appeared) it is no doubt that it is duly chosen. But the version you see is already above 61.11, and they are the version that fixes the new bug on the safe harbor basis, and their stability is significantly higher than 61.11. One thing to suggest, however, is that it is best not to choose the latest version, but to choose the sub-high (it is obviously appropriate to choose 10.5.64.9 for example). This is recommended only to properly mitigate the risk, although it has been rigorously tested at the time of release, but longer market validation is clearly more plausible.

11.0 or later:

For more than 11.9 of the version, the official suffix appeared a new reference. The version previously marked with F became Feature Phase, without the suffix becoming the maintenance Phase. When the download version is selected maintenance, which means that the version has entered a stable period, Feature phase version is not recommended for use in the production network, only in the test environment or in order to timely use of new features of the scene. Also in the version number selection is still selected secondary version (for example, select 11.0.68.10/68.12)

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The meaning of the software version number

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The firmware download will be seen as the name identification, the Citrixnetscaler software system uses the three-digit software version format. The three-digit format provides a better boundary between the product release amplitude, which facilitates the customer to choose the software version to deploy during the lifecycle.

• Major Version (Major release): The main version contains significant behavioral changes, increased functionality, significant performance gains, and significant changes in support for new hardware and/or architectures.

• Minor version (Minor Release) : Minor versions contain some feature additions and enhancements, but you do not have to publish a separate major version for this.

• Maintenance Version ( Maintenance Release) : maintenance releases are often dedicated to bug fixes and optimizations, and this version does not include new features. The same major and minor versions are the same, with different maintenance versions stating that the product features the same.

• NC or CL : Indicates whether the system is a single-core system or a multi-core parallel processing system, and the Classic (CL) description system is a single-core version that functions with a single core of a single CPU. Ncore (NC) Description system is multi-core parallel processing architecture, multi-CPU multi-core evenly distributed traffic.

Software life cycle Definition

• Generic version (GA): This date represents a new product release that can already be ordered and available worldwide for all supported language types, discount procedures, shipping methods.

• Notification of status changes (NSC): This date is the date that Citrix publicly informs the product of the stop-sell date (EOS), the date of the Stop maintenance (EOM), the end of the life cycle (EOL). This information is posted on the Citrix official website Product matrix (Productmatrix) or the previous product matrix (Legacy products matrices Tables).

• Termination of Sales (EOS): This date indicates that a specific software version or device model will cease to be sold publicly.

• Termination of Maintenance (EOM): This date represents a specific product that does not have any additional code-level maintenance In addition to the Citrix that are considered critical security-related updates. The security issue should be a publicly available security vulnerability.

• end of life cycle (EOL) : This date indicates product maintenance, technical support via phone, e-mail or online service, and product downloads will no longer be available. Information about the Citrix Knowledge Centre (Citrixknowledge Center) will also be limited, and if the problem cannot be corrected, it needs to be migrated to the latest version of the software via the upgrade path, or to update the hardware.

Citrix Network product software version, from release to termination of sales (EOS) for at least 18 months. Citrix will provide a status change notification (NSC) to the customer 6 months before the end of the sales (EOS) date.

For all Citrix network product software releases, Citrix will maintain a maintenance period of at least 24 months. During this time, the software release series will maintain bug fixes, improvements, and enhancements.

During the 12 months after EOM, software releases support the transition from complete software maintenance to limited technical support, via phone, email, and web pages until the end of life date. During this phase, the software version will continue to be available, but will no longer be enhanced. Citrix Customer Support Center will directly handle customer issues, resolve issues through existing patches/patches, or advise customers to upgrade directly to a newer version of the software.

After the EOL date, Citrix will no longer provide technical support for the software version and remove the software image from the appropriate download site. The product data will be restricted to the Citrix Knowledge Base or other existing online resources and may be deleted in the future period.

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Software stability

Many people often ask "which stable version should I use?" Which version is not a bug? ”

In fact, the first thing to emphasize is that the bug and software are inherently coexistence, no bug-free software, only do not affect a scene of the software.

Stability is relative, many hardware in the so-called "stable version", in fact, does not represent the most stable, most secure, bug and the least version of the vulnerability. The NetScaler is a product that already surpasses the ADC category and has a very rich selection of features. In fact, even if you know that there are many bugs, but these bugs are involved in the functionality of the current environment is not used, then these bugs are not related to you, that is, relatively stable. In the absence of maintenance, there is no need to chase new and upgrade, suitable for their own is the best!!!

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Citrix NetScaler version Management and selection