About NetScaler BLX

NetScaler BLX is one of the software form factors of NetScaler. It can run natively on bare-metal Linux on commercial off-the-shelf servers (COTS).

NetScaler is an application delivery controller that does application-specific traffic analysis to intelligently distribute, optimize, and secure Layer 4-Layer 7 (L4–L7) network traffic for web applications. For example, NetScaler load balances decisions on individual HTTP requests instead of long-lived TCP connections. For more information, see Understanding NetScaler.

What is the difference between NetScaler BLX and other software form factors?

BLX, CPX, and VPX are software form factors of NetScaler.

  • NetScaler BLX is a lightweight software package that runs natively on Linux systems. BLX provides simplicity with no hypervisor or container overhead for better performance. BLX runs as a Linux process on your hardware of choice.

  • CPX is a containerized version of NetScaler, which must run in a container.

  • VPX is a virtual appliance and must run on a hypervisor installed on the server.

Why NetScaler BLX?

The following are the benefits of using BLX:

  • Cloud-ready - BLX provides day-zero support for running on the cloud. It does not require any certifications to run on the cloud because it runs as a software application on Linux virtual machines provisioned on the cloud.

  • Easy-management - You can use the standard tools of the Linux operating system to monitor and manage BLX. You can also easily plug in BLX to an existing orchestration setup.

  • Seamless third-party tools integration - You can seamlessly integrate open-source tools supported for Linux environments with BLX. There is no need to develop separate plug-ins for each integration.

  • Coexistence of other applications - BLX runs as a software application. Other Linux applications can also run on the same host.

  • DPDK support - BLX supports Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) integration for better performance. It uses the DPDK open-source library to improve performance and overcome the Linux kernel bottleneck in packet processing.

About NetScaler BLX