Last September, two important software industry players came together under the same roof: NetScaler, a leader in the load balancing and network security space that is used by 75 percent of internet users daily, and TIBCO, whose software unlocks the potential of real-time data to help organizations make faster, smarter decisions. Though we operate as separate business units of Cloud Software Group, we’ve already completed several powerful integrations, with more on the way.
As we work more closely together, additional powerful benefits of combining solutions are emerging and being validated from an architectural standpoint, in addition to business-process improvements. Already, we’ve put unified deployment and support in place, greatly simplifying the integration process and enhancing the reliability of our joint solutions.
Check out our TIBCO + NetScaler Technical Solution Brief, which shows in detail how organizations can realize unique value by using NetScalers in front of TIBCO applications. And keep reading to learn about the benefits NetScaler and TIBCO, together, can have for your business.
Why use TIBCO with NetScaler?
Application availability and intelligent health monitoring
A key benefit when using NetScaler with TIBCO applications is enhanced global availability and intelligent health monitoring. NetScaler greatly reduces downtime for your applications due to either planned or unplanned maintenance or upgrades. And with the addition of NetScaler Intelligent Traffic Management (ITM), various factors affecting application response times (such as physical distance, network congestion, ISP network quality, and others) are all considered when a global server load balancing (GSLB) decision is made, ensuring a better experience for users.
In addition to this, NetScaler Intelligent Health Monitoring also supports custom/scriptable monitors, enabling you to address specific application needs and network quality requirements. This gives you the power to maximize the value TIBCO applications can provide to meet the unique needs of your organization.
NetScaler is also positioned to maximize the efficiency of traffic. With its integrated nature and superior software architecture, NetScaler can intercept, inspect, and define the actions to be taken on a request in a single pass, enhancing performance. NetScaler’s one-pass architecture improves the application response time and the user experience, even when multiple security features are deployed.
Consider a case where you’re using an application delivery controller (ADC), an API protection service, and a web application firewall, all from different vendors. Here, every request and response must pass between each entity and go into a separate queue for inspection. This adds substantial latency. But with NetScaler’s one-pass architecture, all these inspections are done concurrently in the ADC, improving latency and response time and consuming fewer resources. No other vendor offers a one-pass architecture with the corresponding improvement in application performance. In addition, NetScaler is available in multiple form factors including as a virtual machine, bare metal, container, and single or multi-tenant hardware, giving you flexibility to deploy it across on-premises and public cloud environments.
Application security
Engineers from both the NetScaler and TIBCO business units have validated the architecture that shows how NetScaler and TIBCO offer exceptional security for TIBCO applications and APIs within the deployment. NetScaler serves as a full SSL/TLS proxy, allowing for secure end-to-end data transfer. It also adds an extra layer of security by re-encrypting clear text data to the backend to secure the last mile as well as offering mutual authentication on both the frontend and backend. These features reduce the attack surface and protect against such attacks as SSL/TLS protocol attacks, cryptographic attacks, and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
NetScaler also provides comprehensive protection with its integrated web application firewall (WAF), bot mitigation module, and API discovery, which help to ensure TIBCO applications deliver their maximum value. With NetScaler WAF content inspection and protection capabilities, it is easy to safeguard against the OWASP top 10 vulnerabilities, including application-level (L7) attacks. And NetScaler’s integration with top vulnerability scanners (Cenzic, Qualys, WhiteHat, and others) allows you to easily turn scan results into deployable policies to help users get the best possible experience.
NetScaler ADCs see all application request and response traffic because they sit in a unique position in front of servers. And the API discovery and inventory capabilities in NetScaler ADCs help uncover unknown, undocumented, and shadow APIs in an ecosystem. NetScaler’s API discovery capabilities complement the security features within the TIBCO Cloud API management solution, providing greater insights and actionability for deployments outside of TIBCO Cloud. Along with API discovery, NetScaler makes it easy to enforce WAF policies, bot management policies, and more.
Observability and troubleshooting application performance
NetScaler enhances TIBCO’s ability to unlock the potential of real-time data by providing insights and recommendations for application health, performance, and security. NetScalers can also identify and report this data in real time. This information is available via a dashboard, which streamlines the presentation of the data and simplifies the process of taking action to maintain optimal application performance. And with the use of NetScaler’s automated recommendations, it’s easier than ever for you to achieve Qualys Labs’ coveted A+ SSL rating.
You can also stream application health data to popular observability endpoints like Splunk, Prometheus, Elasticsearch, and others to make it as accessible and actionable as possible.
A growing partnership
The NetScaler and TIBCO teams are excited to be developing new complementary solutions and product integrations that deliver even greater joint value. Developments such as validated architectures, aligned support, seamless integration, and simplified pricing and purchasing will all result in an even better customer experience. By leveraging the expertise and resources of both NetScaler and TIBCO, we are committed to providing our customers with the very best solutions that address their evolving needs. Between the already unified support and seamless deployment, validated reference architectures, and upcoming future integrations, no other ADC is better suited for TIBCO applications than NetScaler.
To learn more about what NetScaler and TIBCO, together, can do for your organization, take a look at the TIBCO + NetScaler Technical Solution Brief or speak with an expert today.