In Q4 last year, Citrix made its NetScaler physical appliances available as a virtual appliance.  Labeled as the “VPX”, the full featured virtual iteration of the appliance dropped its price point and made it more accessible to SMB customers.  Citrix has now made the Access Gateway (CAG) and Branch Repeater physical appliances also available as VPXs.  At this point, Citrix has made three of their ‘core’ Networking products available as VPX appliances, which are recapped below.

Citrix NetScaler VPX

  • Released last year in Q4.  Initially, this virtual appliance was only released for XenServer, but now has full support for ESX.  Expected to support Hyper-V in the late summer.
  • Licensed by throughput and available in 10 Mbit, 200 Mbit and 1000 Mbit flavors.
  • Free “Express” edition with 1 Mbit throughput limitation available for lab and PoC environments.
  • Standard NetScaler “Advanced”, “Enterprise” and “Platinum” flavors available.

Citrix Access Gateway VPX

  • Released earlier this month.  Currently only supports XenServer. Support for ESX and Hyper-V expected in the next 6-12 months.
  • Provides same feature as Model 2010 Access Gateway physical appliance.
  • Free “Express” edition exists that provides access to 5 concurrent users that are valid for 12 months.

Citrix Branch Repeater VPX

  • Released in Q1 of 2010.  Currently only supports XenServer. Support for ESX and Hyper-V expected in the next 6-12 months.
  • VPX Appliance does not support the following features available in the physical appliance:
    • Group Mode
    • Ethernet bypass card
  • Still requires Citrix Repeater appliance, which is not available in VPX format.