Prerequisites for cluster nodes

Citrix ADC appliances that are to be added to a cluster must satisfy the following criteria:

• All appliances must have the same software version and build.

• All appliances must be of the same platform type. This means that a cluster must have either all hardware appliances (MPX) or virtual appliances (VPX) or SDX Citrix ADC instances.

  Note

  • For a cluster of hardware appliances (MPX), the appliances must be of the same model type.

  • For the formation of the heterogeneous cluster, all appliances must be of MPX platform type.

  • For a cluster of virtual appliances (VPX), the appliances must be deployed on the following hypervisors: XenServer, Hyper-V, VMware ESX, and KVM.

  • Clusters of SDX Citrix ADC instances are supported in NetScaler 10.1 and later releases. To create a cluster of SDX Citrix ADC instances, see “Set up a cluster of Citrix NetScaler instances”.

  • Jumbo frames are supported on a Citrix ADC cluster that is made up of Citrix ADC SDX instances.

  • You can create L3 clusters of SDX instances.

• (For releases prior to NetScaler 11.0) All appliances must be on the same network. In NetScaler 11.0 and later releases, appliances can belong to different networks.

• All appliances must have the same licenses. Also, depending on the Citrix ADC version, there are some additional aspects to address:

  • For releases prior to NetScaler 10.5 Build 52.x:
    • A separate cluster license file is required. This file must be copied to the /nsconfig/license/ directory of the configuration coordinator.
    • Because of the separate cluster license file, the cluster feature is available irrespective of the Citrix ADC license.
  • For releases after NetScaler 10.5 Build 52.x:
    • No separate cluster license is required.
    • Cluster is licensed with the Enterprise and Platinum licenses. Cluster is not available for Standard license.

• Be initially configured and connected to a common client-side and server-side network.

Note

For a cluster of virtual appliances, that has large configurations, it is recommended to use 6 GB RAM for each node of the cluster.