Citrix introduced some significant changes to its licensing model in March, and NetScaler also announced the end of the sale of their MPX and SDX hardware with perpetual licenses. Both these announcements will impact Citrix customers who use NetScaler load balancers in their infrastructure.
Citrix and NetScaler are part of the Cloud Software Group (formally TIBCO), and the changes to licensing models are part of a broader change in focus across the Cloud Software Group companies.
What's Changing in NetScaler Licensing?
In December 2022, NetScaler announced “the decision to end of sale (EoS) NetScaler (Citrix ADC) perpetually licensed hardware (MPX, SDX) and perpetual software (VPX/BLX) effective 5th March 2023.”
From that date, to license new NetScaler MPX and SDX deployments, organizations will have to move to a subscription model. This change is part of a wider move to the subscription pricing model introduced by Citrix under the Cloud Software Group. NetScaler
preannounced the changes in a Citrix Knowledge Base article. The summary of which is:
- All sales of perpetually licensed versions of NetScaler MPX and SDX hardware ended on 5th March 2023.
- Perpetually licensed VPX/BLX offerings ended on 5th March 2023.
- Low-end VPX subscription (VPX10 Mbps and VPX 25 Mbps) sales ended on 5th March 2023.
- All models of NetScaler Standard edition sales ended on 22nd March.
- Cold spare hardware sales ended on 5th March.
These changes, especially discontinuing the low-end VPX offering and the Standard edition, may concern current NetScaler customers. These changes may reflect a move toward a more Enterprise focus by Citrix under Cloud Software Group. The Citrix blog announcing and explaining the move to subscription pricing is available here. One section in that blog might be concerning to NetScaler customers:
“We are also continuously adding new features to both cloud and on-premises deployments to improve user experience, security, and flexibility. Citrix Universal will be the
primary path to receive software updates and technical support benefits moving forward.”
This suggests that organizations that don’t transition to the new licensing model will not get the same level of service and product enhancements as those using the new subscription. Maybe something to discuss with your NetScaler representative? It’s probably worth noting that Cloud Software Group also increased their prices by 8% in April as part of a separate announcement.
What to do Next?
Subscription pricing is the way that the software and services industry is moving. There is nothing inherently bad about subscription licensing. But IT teams and executives in businesses are busy, and as a result, there is an inertia about changing something
that works if you don’t have to (we’ll defer a discussion about possible technical debt and the costs this can add for another time!)
As anyone who has worked in technology will know, sometimes change is thrust upon you from an external source. This is what NetScaler customers are experiencing now due to the switch to subscription licensing.
As someone might have said — “never let a good crisis go to waste!” While this forced change to subscription licensing by the Citrix group of companies isn’t a crisis, it will force NetScaler users to look at their infrastructure
deployments and associated costs. If you are a NetScaler user, and given that you will need to evaluate your current setup to calculate future costs and strategy, this is a perfect time to reevaluate your technology choices and look at how Progress
LoadMaster could be a more cost-effective solution that also delivers an industry-leading load balancing and application experience for your organization.
Evaluating LoadMaster as a NetScaler Replacement
If you are reevaluating your use of NetScaler in light of the licensing changes, and the removal of the Standard offering plus some VPX options, and want to see if LoadMaster is a better choice for your organization moving forward, we have several resources
that can help.
- Our LoadMaster vs. NetScaler comparison site — Case studies, How-to’s, and other articles on how your company can achieve a better ROI with LoadMaster. In addition to better performance.
- YouTube On-Demand Webinar: 5 Reasons to Replace Citrix ADC Load Balancing with Kemp — A comparison of NetScaler and LoadMaster features and some reasons why LoadMaster might be a better fit for your organization. As noted in
the webinar, LoadMaster solutions are more powerful, easier to deploy, can be licensed in innovative and flexible ways, have unrivaled technical support, and cost significantly less than the NetScaler configurations. In almost all deployments, a LoadMaster
solution will be better.
- Additional Q&A from the Webinar — We published a follow-up Q&A blog post answering several of the excellent (and one tongue-in-cheek) questions from the Webinar chat.
The main questions NetScaler customers will have at this point will be the technical aspects that LoadMaster solutions provide and how it would compare in cost to NetScaler. The former question gets answered on the Loadmaster landing page and pages linked
from there.
The cost question has many variables and will depend on your current deployment and future requirements. The easiest way to get a picture of how LoadMaster would compare to your NetScaler costs now and after the switch to the new subscription pricing
is to talk to the
Progress LoadMaster sales team. Chat with us today, and let’s run some numbers to see how we can enhance your application experience while saving your organization money that you can use to deliver other business improvement
projects.
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