Citrix has added two new mid-range appliances to its Intel-based NetScaler MPX line of application networking systems, the 10500 and the 12500 that begin at $42,000.

Citrix claims “unparalleled” price/performance. It brags that they are fully functional, lower cost and run on half the power of competing solutions, the lowest power consumption in its class.

They offer between 5 Gbps and 8 Gbps HTTP performance and support L4-7 load balancing, application acceleration, server offload and application firewall security.

Citrix says it can now scale from small single-application virtual appliances to massive high-end systems designed for the busiest web sites. It claims enterprise customers no longer have to choose between performance and functionality when building their web application delivery infrastructure.

The new appliances can be deployed alongside NetScaler VPX virtual appliances, enabling next-generation datacenter architectures that marry the performance of hardware appliances with the agility and flexibility of software-based virtual appliances.

The widgets process multiple complex operations on each application workload in parallel at multi-gigabit speeds.

Citrix says that using multiple CPU cores enables numerous web application delivery features to run concurrently with no significant impact on performance. Functions that have traditionally been available only on discrete solutions can be consolidated, including SSL VPNs and application firewalls. NetScaler MPX lets enterprises reduce the number of disparate devices in their infrastructure to limit complexity and increase overall datacenter resiliency.

Customers can upgrade from a 10500 to a 12500 with a software license upgrade.

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