Citrix, Akamai To Integrate Web Application Delivery Offerings

Citrix Systems, one of the leading providers of application delivery infrastructure, and Akamai Technologies, a provider of dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, have announced an agreement that will make it easier for customers and integration partners to combine each company’s web application delivery offerings into integrated solutions that enhance the performance, scalability and security of enterprise web applications. The companies will leverage Citrix’s premise-based NetScaler product line and Akamai’s cloud-based Web Application Accelerator service to bring end-to-end web application delivery to both Internet and enterprise customers worldwide.

As the boundary between ‘applications’ and ‘content’ continues to blur, customers increasingly need a blend of delivery solutions that work together seamlessly to ensure the lowest cost of ownership for IT and a great experience for end users. The increased adoption of interactive Web 2.0 applications coupled with the explosion of rich media content puts even more pressure on existing network and application infrastructures, requiring easy interoperability between premise-based and cloud-based delivery solutions. Enterprises can no longer tolerate a patchwork of solutions from non-aligned IT vendors as they attempt to build an end-to-end infrastructure for delivering these web applications to end users.

More from Biztech

Future Group - Reliance Retail Deal approved by CCI RBI ban on cryptocurrencies takes effect; prohibition could force investors to tap the black market

“This initiative is strategic for both Akamai and Citrix as it marks the beginning of a close collaboration between two market leaders that will focus on optimising total cost of ownership and performance experiences for customers via a new class of application delivery controller services,” said Mark Templeton, president and chief executive officer, Citrix Systems. “Optimisation of the user experience will happen in the data centre, at the edge of the network and in the Internet cloud, allowing IT to deliver any application to any user with the best performance, security and cost savings possible.”

“Today’s enterprise, dependent on the Internet to serve a global audience of customers, partners, and employees, has made optimised application delivery a top priority,” said Paul Sagan, president and CEO of Akamai. “Together, Akamai and Citrix solutions will create one end-to-end solution that will allow customers to maximise their investment quickly while benefitting from faster application performance, greater infrastructure scalability, higher application availability and deeper application security.”

As part of the collaboration between Citrix and Akamai, the companies intend to establish a Citrix-Akamai partner assistance program, designed to help integrators establish practices to implement the two solutions together at customer sites and a Citrix-Akamai online community, designed to help enterprise customers share best practices, experiences and support questions when using Citrix and Akamai Web application delivery solutions together.

The two companies will also publish a series of best practices deployment guides showing recommended configuration guidelines to achieve the best possible application performance for various scenarios.