This blog post was co-authored by Jason Poole, Principal Product Marketing Manager.

Hybrid-cloud deployments are not a new concept. Organizations have adopted hybrid-cloud strategies to reap the benefits of both cloud worlds. Private clouds give organizations full control and visibility of their data, configuration, and resources. Public clouds enable organizations to quickly scale resources up and down, providing unprecedented levels of flexibility and cost-efficiency advantages.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, revolutionized hybrid cloud with the launch of AWS Outposts last year. AWS Outposts is a fully configured rack of compute and storage built with AWS-designed hardware, which is managed and functions as a local extension of an existing AWS Region to deliver the power of the hybrid cloud to the enterprise.

Citrix ADC simplifies hybrid-application delivery in AWS environments. The Citrix ADC global server load balancing (GSLB) solution distributes application traffic across multiple datacenters in hybrid clouds that are built using AWS Regions and AWS Outposts infrastructure.

Figure 1: Application delivery with Citrix ADC in hybrid cloud with AWS (click image to view larger)

Citrix ADC GSLB can be deployed in an active-active configuration across multiple sites in an hybrid cloud with AWS set up (see Figure 1). This deployment type can be used to globally steer traffic across a distributed environment. Sites exchange metrics about the respective availability and health of resources through the Metrics Exchange Protocol (MEP).

The Citrix ADC appliance uses this information to load balance traffic across sites and sends client requests to the most appropriate GSLB site as determined by the defined method (round robin, least connection, static proximity, etc.) specified in the GSLB configuration.

Citrix ADC GSLB supports both active-active and active-passive deployments to address different use cases. Active-active deployments are primarily used to:

  • Optimize the resource utilization with all nodes being active
  • Enhance the user experience by steering requests to the site closest to each individual user
  • Migrate applications to the cloud at a user-defined pace

Active-passive deployments are primary used for:

  • Disaster recovery
  • Cloud burst

Along with these flexible deployment options and application delivery mechanisms, Citrix ADC secures the entire network and application portfolio, whether the applications are deployed natively on AWS Cloud or AWS Outposts.

Learn more about Citrix ADC and Citrix ADC GSLB.