Citrix over an MPLS

[Dan Loring]

We are running Citrix over our MPLS, is there any way to accelerate ICA?  I was told the only way to do this is using SSL over a WAN..  No acceleration over an mpls? 

[Christopher Miles]

Hi Dan,

I have included a link to a Cisco Whitepaper that discusses options for deploying WAAS in an MPLS-VPN type environment.. While the WAAS device itself currently is not VRF Aware there are several intergration options discussed

www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/contnetw/ps5680/ps6870/white_paper_C11-560131.pdf

With SSL the WAAS device is capable of handling the SSL termination directly and therefore can accelerate encrypted packets

cheers,

Chris

[stmccabe]

Dan,

If the Citrix flows can be redirected before being label switched in MPLS then WAAS can accelerate.  Morever, to Chris's point, the WAE can decrypt an SSL based Citrix flow, accelerate, reencrypt and send it back on the wire to the Core WAE, then on to Citrix head end.

Do you have the option of transparently redirecting (wccp) the Citrix traffic prior to entering the MPLS cloud?

Another consideration if you can redirect the traffic via wccp prior to entering MPLS cloud, is if you have ECMP routing with dual mpls links and dual PE routers - Make sure you can leverge wccp negotiated return to avoid redirect loops..

[Dan Loring]

We could redirect ica at the data center, but not at the remote sites, the only routing outside of the mpls router is a  layer3 switch. Sounds like we would have to put another router inline at all our sites.