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Support matrix and usage guidelines

July 10, 2019
Contributed by:  S C

This document lists the different hypervisors and features supported on a NetScaler VPX instance, and their usage guidelines and limitations.

  • Table 1-6 list the different supported hypervisors.
  • Table 7 lists the different VPX features and limitations for the different hypervisors supported on a NetScaler VPX instance.
  • Table 8 lists the supported web browsers that allow you access the GUI and Dashboard.

Table 1. VPX instance on XenServer

XenServer version SysID VPX models
6.2, 6.5 450000 VPX 10, VPX 25, VPX 200, VPX 1000, VPX 3000, VPX 5000, VPX 8000, VPX 10G, VPX 15G, VPX 25G, VPX 40G

Table 2. VPX instance on VMware ESX server

VMware ESX version SysID VPX models
5.5 (build number: 3568722); 6.0 (build number: 3620759) 450010 VPX 10, VPX 25, VPX 200, VPX 1000, VPX 3000, VPX 5000, VPX 8000, VPX 10G, VPX 15G, VPX 25G, VPX 40G, VPX 100G

Table 3. VPX on Microsoft Hyper-V

Hyper-V version SysID VPX models
2012, 2012R2 450020 VPX 10, VPX 25, VPX 200, VPX 1000, VPX 3000, VPX 8000

Table 4. VPX instance on generic KVM

Generic KVM version SysID VPX models
RHEL 7.2, Ubuntu 15 450070 VPX 10, VPX 25, VPX 200, VPX 1000, VPX 3000, VPX 5000, VPX 8000, VPX 10G, VPX 15G. VPX 25G, VPX 40G, VPX 100G

Note: The VPX instance is qualified for hypervisor release versions mentioned in table 1–4, and not for patch releases within a version. However, the VPX instance is expected to work seamlessly with patch releases of a supported version. If it does not, log a support case for troubleshooting and debugging.

Table 5. VPX instance on AWS

AWS version SysID VPX models
N/A 450040 VPX 10, VPX 200, VPX 1000, VPX 3000, VPX 5000, VPX 15G, VPX BYOL

Table 6. VPX instance on Azure

Azure version SysID VPX models
N/A 450020 VPX 10, VPX 200, VPX 1000, VPX 3000, VPX BYOL

Table 7. VPX feature matrix

VPX-feature

*Clustering support is available on SRIOV for client- and server-facing interfaces and not for the backplane.

**Interface DOWN events are not recorded in NetScaler VPX instances.

For Static LA, traffic might still be sent on the interface whose physical status is DOWN.

For LACP, peer device knows interface DOWN event based on LACP timeout mechanism.

Short timeout: 3 seconds

Long timeout: 90 seconds

For LACP, interfaces must not be shared across VMs.

For Dynamic routing, convergence time depends on the Routing Protocol since link events are not detected.

Monitored static Route functionality fails if monitors are not bound to static routes since Route state depends on the VLAN status. The VLAN status depends on the link status.

Partial failure detection does not happen in high availability if there is link failure. High availability-split brain condition might happen if there is link failure.

***When any link event (disable/enable, reset) is generated from a VPX instance, the physical status of the link does not change. For static LA, any traffic initiated by the peer gets dropped on the instance.

For LACP, peer device knows interface DOWN event based on LACP timeout mechanism.

Short timeout: 3 seconds

Long timeout: 90 seconds

For LACP, interfaces should not be shared across VMs.

  • For the VLAN tagging feature to work, do the following:

On the VMware ESX, set the port group’s VLAN ID to 1 - 4095 on the vSwitch of VMware ESX server. For more information about setting a VLAN ID on the vSwitch of VMware ESX server, see pdf.

Table 8. Supported browsers

Operating system Browser and versions
Windows 7 Internet Explorer- 8, 9, 10, and 11; Mozilla Firefox 3.6.25 and above; Google Chrome- 15 and above
Windows 64 bit Internet Explorer - 8, 9; Google Chrome - 15 and above
MAC Mozilla Firefox - 12 and above; Safari - 5.1.3; Google Chrome - 15 and above

Usage guidelines

Follow these usage guidelines:

  • See the VMware ESXi CPU Considerations section in the document Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 6.5. Here’s an extract:

    It is not recommended that virtual machines with high CPU/Memory demand sit on a Host/Cluster that is overcommitted. In most environments ESXi allows significant levels of CPU overcommitment (that is, running more vCPUs on a host than the total number of physical processor cores in that host) without impacting virtual machine performance. If an ESXi host becomes CPU saturated (that is, the virtual machines and other loads on the host demand all the CPU resources the host has), latency-sensitive workloads might not perform well. In this case you might want to reduce the CPU load, for example by powering off some virtual machines or migrating them to a different host (or allowing DRS to migrate them automatically).

  • The Citrix ADC VPX is a latency-sensitive, high-performance virtual appliance. To deliver its expected performance, the appliance requires vCPU reservation, memory reservation, vCPU pinning on the host. Also, hyper threading must be disabled on the host. If the host does not meet these requirements, issues such as high-availability failover, CPU spike within the VPX instance, sluggishness in accessing the VPX CLI, pitboss daemon crash, packet drops, and low throughput occur.

  • A hypervisor is considered over-provisioned if one of the following two conditions is met:

    • The total number of virtual cores (vCPU) provisioned on the host is greater than the total number of physical cores (pCPUs).

    • The total number of provisioned VMs consume more vCPUs than the total number of pCPUs.

      At times, if an instance is over-provisioned, the hypervisor might not be able to guarantee the resources reserved (such as CPU, memory, and others) for the instance due to hypervisor scheduling over-heads or bugs or limitations with the hypervisor. This can cause lack of CPU resource for Citrix ADC and might lead to issues mentioned in the first point under Usage guidelines. As administrators, you’re recommended to reduce the tenancy on the host so that the total number of vCPUs provisioned on the host is lesser or equal to the total number of pCPUs.

      Example For ESX hypervisor, if the %RDY% parameter of a VPX vCPU is greater than 0 in the esxtop command output, the ESX host is said to be having scheduling overheads, which can cause latency related issues for the VPX instance.

      In such a situation, reduce the tenancy on the host so that %RDY% returns to 0 always. Alternatively, contact the hypervisor vendor to triage the reason for not honoring the resource reservation done.

Support matrix and usage guidelines

July 10, 2019
Contributed by:  S C

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