Citrix NetScaler 8.0: Operations, Administration and Advanced Features

Course Overview

This course prepares administrators and other IT professionals to successfully deploy, administer, and configure Citrix(R) NetScaler(R) 8.0. Learners will gain understanding of NetScaler features such as load balancing, SSL offload, policy engine expressions, content filtering, compression, content switching, monitoring, and troubleshooting.

Interactive instructor-led discussion and hands-on labs guide learners through administration tasks, preparing them to support Citrix(R) NetScaler(R) 8.0 deployments.

Audience

This course is intended for system administrators or network operations personnel, who configure and administer Citrix NetScaler products.

Skills Gained

Upon successful completion of this course, learners are able to perform the following:

• Identify Citrix NetScaler products, hardware platforms and hardware components
• Identify common deployment scenarios and deployment considerations
• Identify NetScaler system installation requirements
• Describe the installation process
• Log in to the NetScaler system
• Identify NetScaler system-owned IP addresses
• Upgrade system software
• Manage licenses
• Enable features
• Manage administration accounts
• Configure high availability
• Create servers and services
• Configure health checks
• Create load balancing virtual servers
• Enable persistence
• Configure advanced load balancing options
• Identify common SSL deployments
• Create, upload and bind certificates
• Configure advanced SSL offload options
• Configure policy engine expressions
• Bind content filter actions
• Configure compression policies
• Create and bind content switching virtual servers and policies
• Configure auditing
• Configure client IP address insertion
• Configure monitoring using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
• Configure Global Server Load Balancing
• Configure advance load balancing
• Understand Advanced Policy Engine expressions
• Configure responder and rewrite features
• Secure the NetScaler system communication
• Configure monitoring with SNMP
• Implement troubleshooting procedures

Examinations

This course will prepare learners for exam 731 Citrix NetScaler 8.0: Administration, a requirement of the Citrix Certified Administrator for Citrix NetScaler 8 certification program.

Prerequisites

Before taking this course, Citrix recommends that learners have the following:

• Intermediate knowledge of TCP/IP and HTTP protocols and an understanding of the OSI model
• Experience with network devices, various networking protocols, and aspects of application and site architecture
• Moderate exposure to UNIX or Linux
• Exposure to basic systems administration concepts, including logging, software upgrade procedures and high availability operations
• Familiarity with web server software
• Basic knowledge of DNS, SSL, and compression concepts
• Understanding of concepts related to server load balancing and content switching
• Knowledge of network security threats and site protection concepts

Course Outline

Introducing and Deploying Citrix NetScaler

• Citrix NetScaler Functions and Features
• NetScaler Product Line

1. Identifying NetScaler Software Options
2. Identifying the NetScaler Hardware Platforms
3. Identifying the NetScaler Hardware Components

• Deployment Scenarios

1. Identifying Network Placement Options
2. Identifying Deployment Considerations

Performing an Initial Installation and Configuration

• Installation Requirements
• NetScaler System Installation

1. Logging in to the NetScaler System
2. Understanding the Setup Configuration Wizard
3. Setting the Password

• Initial Configuration

1. Understanding Virtual Local Area Networks
2. Saving the Configuration

Performing Basic Administration

• NetScaler Administrative Tools

1. Introducing the Configuration Utility
2. Introducing the Command Line Interface
3. Introducing the Statistical Utility
4. Introducing FreeBSD
5. Using Third-Party Tools

• NetScaler Management

1. Performing an Upgrade
2. Managing Licensing
3. Enabling NetScaler Features
4. Managing Role-Based Administration

Configuring High Availability

• Introduction to High Availability
• HA Node Configuration

1. Configuring Nodes using the Configuration Utility
2. Configuring Nodes using the CLI
3. Verifying HA Status
4. Performing Synchronization
5. Performing a Forced Failover

• HA Management

Configuring Load Balancing

• Introduction to Load Balancing

1. Managing Entities
2. Creating Servers and Services

• Service Monitoring

1. Introducing Monitor Parameters
2. Configuring HTTP Monitor
3. Configuring ECV Monitors0
4. Configuring HTTP-INLINE Monitors3
5. Configuring Monitors Using the Configuration Utility
6. Configuring Monitors Using the CLI

• Load Balancing Virtual Servers

1. Configuring Virtual Server Service Types
2. Configuring Load Balancing Methods
3. Binding Load Balancing Entities
4. Configuring Session Persistence

• Advanced Load Balancing Options

1. Configuring Load Monitors

• Service and Virtual Server Management

Configuring SSL Offload

• SSL and Digital Certificates
• SSL Offload
• Server Certificates
• SSL Deployment Decisions
• Front-End SSL with Backend HTTP
• Front-End SSL with Backend SSL
• Front-End SSL_TCP with Backend TCP
• SSL Administration

1. Generating a Key
2. Generating a Certificate Signing Request
3. Generating a Certificate for Testing
4. Installing a Certificate
5. Binding a Certificate
6. Configuring Advanced SSL Settings

Configuring Policy Engine Expressions

• Introduction to Policies
• Policy Types and Their Uses
• Expression Structures
• Policy Syntax

1. Understanding HTTP and HTTPS Traffic
2. Identifying Qualifiers
3. Identifying Operators
4. Understanding Operands, Wildcards and Context-Sensitive Fields

Configuring Content Filtering

• Introduction to Content Filtering
• Filter Actions

1. Configuring Content Filters and Identifying Actions
2. Binding Filters

Configuring Compression

• Compression Benefits
• Compression Policies
• Associated Compression Actions

Configuring Content Switching

• Introduction to Content Switching
• Content Switching Virtual Servers
• Content Switching Policies

1. Binding Content Switching Policies to Content Switching Virtual Servers

Auditing and Logging

• Syslog and Nslog Auditing

1. Configuring Audit Servers
2. Configuring Global Auditing Parameters
3. Configuring Auditing Policies
4. Binding Auditing Policies
5. Viewing Recent Audit Messages
6. Viewing Historical Audit Messages

• Client IP Address Insertion
• NetScaler Log Management

Monitoring

• Simple Network Management Protocol
• SNMPv1 and SNMPv2

1. Configuring SNMP Managers
2. Configuring the MIB System Variables
3. Configuring SNMP Community Strings
4. Configuring SNMP Traps
5. Configuring SNMP Alarms

• SNMPv3
• Statistical Utility

1. Identifying the Statistical Utility Components
2. Navigating the Statistical Utility
3. Customizing the Built-in Comparative Charts Pane
4. Customizing the Group Monitoring Pane

• Monitoring Tool

Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB)

• Understanding the GSLB architecture
• Reviewing DNS and GSLB concepts
• Configuring traditional GSLB implementation
• Configuring proximity based GSLB implementation

Advanced Policy Engine

• Understanding Advanced Policy Engine
• Understanding elements of a policy

Responder and Rewrite Features

• Understanding responder and rewrite features
• Understanding processing flow with responder and rewrite
• Configuring basic policies and actions
• Understanding actions in detail
• Configuring Advanced Policy Engine processing: banks and targets

Advanced Load Balancing Topics

• Understanding load balancing
• Configuring extended content verification monitors
• Understanding token and hashing based load balancing
• Understanding sessionless load balancing

Monitoring the NetScaler using Simple Network Management Protocol

• Reviewing SNMP basics
• Polling SNMP statistics on the NetScaler system using Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG)

Securing the NetScaler

• Securing NetScaler system communication
• Creating Access Control Lists
• Securing the NetScaler system using RPCNode
• Configuring external authentication

Advanced Troubleshooting

• Reviewing NetScaler overview
• Understanding Nsconmsg and newnslog commands
• Understanding nstrace command
• Understanding statistics in the CLI
• Understanding statistics in the Dashboard

Citrix NetScaler 8.0: Operations, Administration and Advanced Features / CTX1735AI (CTX1735, CTX1735)