A month after Cisco Systems Inc. decided to scale down its work on the company’s ACE application control engine plug-in for Catalyst 6500 switches, the company has teamed with one of its competitors to fill the gap.
Cisco said last week that it has struck a deal with Citrix Systems to integrate that company’s NetScaler application delivery controller to give Layer 4-7 services. It was reported earlier that Cisco was getting clobbered by Citrix and F5 Networks in the load balancer market and would likely be looking for a partner rather than continue to develop its product.
“Cisco will continue to fully support existing customers of its Application Control Engine (ACE) product line and will recommend Citrix NetScaler as an alternative to customers who want to deploy a next-generation ADC,” Cisco said in a news release announcing the partnership.
NetScaler will be integrated with Cisco security services, such as its Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) and Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA), the companies said. Citrix XenServer will also be integrated with Cisco’s Nexus 1000V so enterprises and service providers can build clouds based in part on key open source technology.
The announcement was part of a broader partnership agreement the two companies struck.
They also promise to develop solutions that give mobile users a unified way to securely access business apps, data, voice and collaboration services. They said joint solution, when developed, will link Cisco collaboration technology, including tighter integration of the Cisco Jabber client, with the Citrix Receiver self-service mobile access client and Citrix CloudGateway for enterprise mobility management.
The joint solution will also include Citrix ShareFile for secure, cloud-based data services across any mix of user devices. To enable an optimized, monitored and managed rich-media experience for accessing virtual Windows apps and desktops from mobile devices, Citrix will incorporate Cisco MediaNet into Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp. To secure mobile workers, Cisco and Citrix will link Citrix Receiver, Citrix Access Gateway and CloudGateway with the Cisco secure access portfolio including Cisco AnyConnect, Cisco ASA, and the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE).
There was no date on when the solutions will be ready.