As I published back October last year (2006)
http://geekswithblogs.net/eknowlogy/archive/2006/10/11/93799.aspx
Thanks to Doug (www.dabcc.com) and Citrix User Group - New Zealand reminding us.
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The Tolly group has published a very interesting article about the findings of their performance comparison between the Citrix and Juniper offerings.
The Juniper SA-1000 is targeted at small to medium size businesses. Both products offer similar services (SSL VPN) with the CAG offering somewhat more granular controls, especially when combined with Presentation Server, but this review suggests that at a base performance level the Citrix product comes out on top over the Juniper offering.
You can download the Tolly paper here at no cost
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Over the past year / 18 months I have been involved with quite a bit of SSL VPN testing and as usual the vendors have analysis's and information valid for both sides of the arguments.
Since the test was published there seems to be information around this that Juniper and Citrix might wanted to have told Tolly / are Tolly might have wanted to ask about , but did not. Not Quoting Internal source's from both Citrix and Juniper but..
1) At the time of the test the Juniper SA 1000 was an end of line product and was replaced with the Juniper SA 2000.
2) Citrix have been upgrading and adding feature's like wild fire since the test and versions of builds at the time were quarterly or monthly.
3) Citrix solution with Advanced access controlled requires an internal Windows server to provide the Advanced Access options were the Juniper SSL VPN has built in Advanced access control features. (No need for an internal server)
4) The Citrix Access Gateway was Pre-Release version of the Citrix Access Gateway 4.2.
5) Juniper SSL VPN is purchased as feature modules vs. Citrix bundled features.
6) Testing tools that can really analysis bandwidth, performance etc other than ethereal might had want to be used.
Today both products have changed in version and moved on quite a bit.
Juniper is now the SA2000 R 5.4 http://www.juniper.net/products_and_services/ssl_vpn_secure_access/secure_access_2000/index.html
Citrix Access Gateway http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/product.asp?contentID=15005
Both companies have very interesting products and solutions, and it would be nice to test the products and solutions independently, and not limited to what each company does best.
I would hope that Citrix should be great at Citrix Presentation Server and Juniper should be good at access control because this is each's product backgrounds, in a balanced bakeoff / platform test I would always suggest that the solutions and devices are tested to as close as real life as possible.
Test the wide use of features that companies claim to have and can deploy, then rate the products on business as well as features. Options examples cost per user, supportability, functionality versus requirements, style of environment that the device is going into (is it an all Citrix or Juniper environment), roadmaps. corporate strategy.
The SSL VPN space is very fast moving at the moment and a lot of players buying for number one spot.
In my experience do your home work and pick the 2 or 3 best for your solution and POC and test like mad.. "Personally Citrix and Juniper would be one of the 2 at the top of my list, with my experience over the past 18 months"..
Check out a few reports such as
The Forrester Wave™: SSL VPN Appliances, Q4 2006
http://www.juniper.net/company/presscenter/awards/forrester_sslvpn_wave_report_Q406.pdf
also available at http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/documents.asp?contentid=15005
Charles Aunger
charles aunger eknowlogy / eviglio / frameworkx