Future-proofing ADCs
A critical component for new telco services
Sponsored by
Contents
Executive summary .........................................................................................................................................4
Market overview ..............................................................................................................................................5
New areas of growth .....................................................................................................................................5
Enterprise services .......................................................................................................................................5
The importance of the CSP data center .......................................................................................................5
Enabling services at the network edge ...........................................................................................................6
Multi-tenancy ................................................................................................................................................6
CGNAT ...........................................................................................................................................................7
Firewall/VPN .................................................................................................................................................7
Load balancing ..............................................................................................................................................7
Scalability and cost efficiency of ADCs .........................................................................................................7
TCO analysis ....................................................................................................................................................7
Methodology ..................................................................................................................................................7
CSP scenarios ...............................................................................................................................................8
Conclusions....................................................................................................................................................10
Citrix Brings New Levels of Efficiency with New ADCs .................................................................................11
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2
About the author
Dimitris Mavrakis
Dimitris Mavrakis is a Principal Analyst with Ovum. He is part of the Intelligent Networks team where he covers a range of
topics including LTE, LTE-A, 5G, SDN, NFV, WiFi, IoT, network APIs and identifying how under-the-radar technologies may
disrupt or improve the mobile value chain.
Dimitris is also actively involved in Ovum's consulting business and has led several projects on behalf of Tier-1 operators and
key vendors.
Dimitris has over 10 years experience in the telecommunications market. He has a strong background in mobile and fixed
networks and an in-depth understanding of market dynamics in the telecoms business. In the past, Dimitris has worked as a
project leader to perform network measurements and road tests. In his academic career, he has led a team of researchers to
produce pioneering research and acclaimed publications.
Dimitris holds a PhD in Mobile Communications and an MSc in Satellite Communications from the University of Surrey.
© 2015 Ovum. All rights reserved. www.ovum.com
3
Executive summary
The telecoms market is becoming an increasingly hostile and competitive environment, where
regulation, new OTT entrants, saturation, and the economic environment are eroding the telco
operators’ profit margins. On the other hand, there is heated discussion in the industry about
the need for new technologies and platforms that will help these same operators operate a
much leaner network and business, which will also lead to new business opportunities. Network
virtualization, the evolution from proprietary to commoditized hardware, software, service agility
are some of the trends that are reshaping and, in some cases, disrupting the established operator
business.
Over the last two years, there has been a shift in telecoms operator growth strategy away from
the consumer market and towards the B2B sector. While operators are being disrupted in the
consumer sector by Internet companies, they have the opportunity to be disruptors themselves in
IT services and, specifically, cloud computing.
Operators are at very different stages in their efforts to develop the enterprise market. Some,
particularly national incumbents, have mature enterprise businesses and face the same
competitive challenges as in the consumer sector. Others, particularly mobile-only operators that
have only started building out portfolios of enterprise services in the last five years, are seeing
revenue growth potential but are starting from a low base. Enterprise mobility is one of the
hottest B2B sectors and plays to their strengths.
Success in the B2B sector requires a network that can cope with enterprise requirements and the
Gi-LAN has been identified as a ripe environment for service innovation in today’s operators. The
Application Delivery Controller (ADC) is a critical piece of the service delivery puzzle, albeit one
that is not glorified or widely discussed. ADCs allow the uninterrupted operation of many operator
data services and have evolved from having singular capabilities to offering enterprise services
(VPN, firewall), load balancing between service chains, and CGNAT for IoT. The ADC is considered
a key component for enabling enterprise services and business in new areas.
As illustrated in our TCO study later in this white paper, selecting the right ADC at the right cost
will create the environment operators need to maintain growth in these new areas of business.
Although operators may choose an ADC platform due to legacy relationships, the increase in
required capacity and a difference in cost may make the decision turn towards the more costeffective platform. Our TCO study compares two ADC platforms from Citrix and F5 and concludes
that the TCO savings are significant in high-bandwidth deployments. Given that ADC platforms are
being continuously upgraded, Ovum expects operators to be offered new cost-effective platforms
that will be able to cater for future applications.
© 2015 Ovum. All rights reserved. www.ovum.com
4
Market overview
The telecoms market has become a hostile and
increasingly competitive environment for all
communication service providers (CSPs). Even
Tier-1 CSPs that are now planning to evolve to
a digital service provider are finding out that
revenue growth is a considerable challenge when
competition within the existing value chain and new
entrants – including Web giants – for basic and
advanced communication services is heating up.
LTE, LTE-Advanced, FTTx, and VDSL are providing
some organic growth for the traditional accessbased business models but CSPs need to plan ahead
and implement new strategies to avoid becoming
simple dumb pipe providers.
Service revenues of top-20 CSPs are declining,
and the operational expenditure (opex) accounts
for nearly 60% of these earnings. As a result, most
CSPs are finding it difficult to reinvest into their
business to drive top-line growth or to invest in
long-term transformation initiatives that will provide
benefits for many years. A common strategy across
all service providers now is to redefine operational
and business processes in order to enhance the
end-user experience, increase customer retention,
launch new services in established and new
segments, and become a more valuable partner.
New areas of growth
The Communications Technology (CT) environment
is merging with Information Technology (IT) to
create what is now being referred to as ICT. As the
boundaries between the two distinct value chains
begin to fade, vendors in both these markets are
finding new opportunities outside their traditional
reach. Moreover, buyers of technology from these
two markets are finding that their needs can be
fulfilled by new entrants, including much smaller
companies. For example, a contact-center business
can now buy voice capabilities from a Web company,
while a large enterprise can buy cloud services
directly from a CSP. This new ICT value chain is
an environment where services are created – and
decommissioned – in a much quicker and more
agile way.
It is no secret that CSPs are facing considerable
difficulties to compete in this rapidly changing
world. Despite their shortcomings, CSPs now
have the opportunity to enter new and interesting
areas and take advantage of their existing captive
user base to launch new services: These new
areas include the Internet of Things (IoT) and M2M
communications, enterprise verticals, services for
small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and
cloud services for businesses.
Enterprise services
Ovum’s current research indicates that leading
telcos are targeting hybrid and private cloud
services, looking to migrate clients from hosting
and co-location. They are busy striking partnerships
with the public cloud giants for secure cloudinterconnect network services, and are positioning
themselves as partners for enterprises that wish to
move workloads across public, hybrid, and private
clouds on demand. Although systems integrators
are doing this too, we believe this is a realistic
strategy for telcos – at least for telcos with ICT
experience and assets or those willing to buy them.
The importance of the CSP data center
Most of the enterprise services discussed previously
are largely enabled by data centers and most CSPs
are now spending significant amounts of capex to
expand their data-center (DC) footprint to offer new
services. CSPs have invested considerable capex to
deploy mobile and fixed broadband networks over
the past few years, making the years to come likely
to be relatively slow in terms of capital intensity
(capex/revenues). However, Ovum estimates that the
overall spend between 2014 and 2019 for CSPs will
be $2tn – and a large percentage of this expenditure
will be driven by data-center expansion.
Regardless of the service and revenue opportunity,
Tier-1 CSPs are now finding out that they have two
major priorities in terms of technology and services:
create an environment where it’s easy to innovate;
and create new cloud-based services while making
service delivery more efficient and agile. For mobile
networks, the Gi/SGi LAN is an environment where
service innovation can happen and also the space
where the data center, the Internet, and the core
network interface. As such, we expect that Gi/
SGi LAN to be a key component of CSP services
in the coming years and telcos will need to pay
more attention to the technology they deploy in this
particular network domain.
© 2015 Ovum. All rights reserved. www.ovum.com
5
Enabling services at the network edge
The network edge represents a considerable
opportunity for creating new services and fostering
innovation. In the case of mobile networks, there are
two areas where the CSP network interfaces with
the outside world: at the base station, and at the Gi/
SGi interfaces. There are industry initiatives being
developed for adding intelligence at the base station
and other network edges that are close to end users
(including the ETSI Mobile Edge Computing initiative)
but these are still under development and are not
expected to be deployed for at least a few years.
The potential for innovation and new services (e.g.
augmented/virtual reality, location-based services)
is great at the mobile edge, but CSPs do not have a
clear business model for this family of technologies
yet, which would be a major requirement, especially
as the cost to deploy new functionality at the base
station is very costly.
On the other hand, the Gi/SGi (please note that Gi
is used for both Gi for 3G and SGi for LTE for the
rest of the white paper) interface is the gateway to
the rest of the Internet and considered a domain
where service innovation can be fostered. Moreover,
this network edge is not specified extensively in
standards – unlike the rest of CSP networks. It is for
this reason that the Gi-LAN is considered to be one
of the first environments that is likely to be home
to new NFV deployments for new services while
many NFV Proof of Concepts are assessing different
applications in the Gi-LAN, one of them being
service chaining. Some examples of service chaining
include:
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a new malware attack is reported
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Delivery Network (CDN) to ensure user experience
is maintained
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may host applications on the carrier cloud, for
example office applications, firewalls and VPNs
An important component in this process is the ADC,
which resides between the Internet and the CSP
network components outlined above. ADCs are in
charge for many functions, the most important of
which is to route traffic according to the application.
Figure 1 illustrates a simplified Gi-LAN: The ADC is
responsible for routing traffic through different service
chains in this particular illustration but it is also an
enabler for a variety of use cases, outlined below.
Multi-tenancy
A CSP’s business may benefit from multi-tenancy
through several different ways:
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distinct virtual networks with specific SLAs and
network routes
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CSP cloud and governed by granular SLAs.
In the past, multi-tenancy was supported by
different sets of equipment and hardware-driven
service chains. Current virtualization efforts aim to
decouple hardware from software and thus allow
more flexible introduction, scale-in, scale-out,
and destruction of functionality for multi-tenancy
applications. Multi-tenancy is considered a primary
business target for NFV in the Gi-LAN and the
ADC is a critical component to distribute traffic
throughout these service chains.
Figure 1: Simplified Gi-LAN environment
Enterprise traffic
ADC
Firewall/
CGNAT
DPI
Internet
Media
optimiser
M2M
gateway
M2M/IoT traffic
Radio access
Core network
Gi/SGi LAN
Physical or virtual functions
Source: Ovum
© 2015 Ovum. All rights reserved. www.ovum.com
6
CGNAT
Carrier-Grade Network Address Translation
(CGNAT) refers to IPv4 translation in order to share
a limited address pool with several end points. In
the context of mobile networks, CGNAT translates
local mobile IP addresses to public addresses so
that operators can oversubscribe the public address
space allocated to them. CGNAT is vital for mobile
networks – particularly as smartphone penetration
increases and data services become mainstream
– and will even become more important as telco
IoT and M2M businesses become revenue drivers.
CGNAT is also necessary to protect investments in
IPv4 equipment even when IPv6 is widely deployed.
CGNAT is a primary use case for an ADC, which
performs several additional functions for connecting
end points. For example, ADCs allow what is
referred to as “hair-pinning”, where end-points
are allowed to communicate within the operator
network without their addresses being translated to
the public domain.
Firewall/VPN
ADCs are ideally positioned to act either as a
firewall or as an end point for remote connections to
the telecoms or enterprise network. Their position
at the edge of the network and their capabilities
make them ideal for both use cases. Several
CSPs are using ADCs for both of these use cases,
especially as SSL VPNs are widely deployed in the
market today.
Load balancing
Arguably the most important function of an ADC
is load balancing, i.e. distributing traffic across
the network to several appliances. For example,
an ADC is responsible for distributing video traffic
across optimization appliances, which may either be
physical of virtual. With the advent of virtualization,
the use of the ADC may become even more
necessary to distribute traffic across service chains
or virtualized components according to network
policies.
Scalability and cost efficiency of ADCs
ADCs used in a telecoms environment have
stringent requirements for robustness, stability,
cost efficiency, and upgradability. There are several
ADCs in the market today, although very few of them
can scale to the level of Tier-1 CSP requirements.
Mobile operators can choose to deploy many smaller
ADCs and scale according to traffic requirements
but they soon find out that these smaller ADCs are
far too expensive compared with larger platforms.
Several vendors offer carrier-grade ADCs that can
provide services to millions of users. The following
section provides a brief analysis on the economics of
ADCs and a like-for-like comparison of vendors.
TCO analysis
As discussed in previous sections, an ADC is
a critical operation for the uninterrupted and
profitable operation of a telecoms network;
especially as new areas are being targeted,
including enterprise verticals and IoT. As such,
operators have been dimensioning and planning
their ADC platforms according to established
overprovisioning techniques which use linear
projections for ADC throughput and other
dimensioning parameters. However, as LTE and
LTE-Advanced usage grows, these platforms will
be increasingly put under strain, especially as TCP/
video optimization, data-center multi-tenancy,
traffic steering, and load balancing for NFV become
critical.
This section presents a TCO analysis of major ADC
platforms available in the market today and could
act as a guide to compare vendors on a like-forlike basis. All data for the analysis below has been
independently sourced and validated with vendor
data sheets or publicly available material – including
pricing.
Methodology
Three ADC platforms have been chosen to be
benchmarked in this analysis, according to
data sheet, pricing, and deployment example
availability across the globe. The three ADCs being
benchmarked are:
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The choice of these specific ADCs is largely driven
by the availability of pricing information from public
sources, including the Pennsylvania Education
Purchasing Program for Microcomputers (PEPPM),
a national US program for education IT purchasing,
and the Office of General Services (OGS) for the New
York State. It is noted that the pricing represented in
© 2015 Ovum. All rights reserved. www.ovum.com
7
this list may not necessarily reflect “street pricing”
or what CSP contracts would include, but these are
expected to be reasonable relative benchmarks for
comparing vendor equipment and comparing TCO
calculations.
The three ADCs chosen represent carrier-grade
platforms listed in the PEPPM/OGS databases
by each vendor. The database includes different
configurations for each of these three products and
the most basic implementation for each has been
chosen for this analysis. Although there are several
configurations for these ADCs – for example, ADC
for security – these are different for each vendor
and each ADC, making a like-for-like comparison
impossible. The configuration of ADCs used for
the TCO comparison includes CGNAT and loadbalancing capabilities in a telecoms environment.
The simple versions of all the ADCs compared here
is more likely to provide a meaningful analysis and
benchmark in terms of simple metrics, including
throughput, HTTP requests per second, and SSL
transactions per second (TPS).
A few selected specifications for the three ADCs
chosen are listed in Table 1.
An initial comparison illustrates that in terms of
throughput, the largest appliance is optimized in
terms of efficiency (see Table 2).
Table 2: ADC cost per unit throughput and HTTP Layer 7 requests
Cost per throughput
unit ($/Gbps)
Cost per HTTP L7 unit
($/RPS)
Citrix NetScaler 25160T
$1,125
$0.039
F5 Viprion 2200 chassis
+ 2 x 2250 blades
$2,090
$0.083
Kemp LM-5400
$1,763
$0.16
Source: PEPPM/OGS databases, vendor datasheets, secondary research, and Ovum data
As expected, the analysis above illustrates that
a larger platform does provide cost efficiency
in demanding applications. It is also expected
that virtualization will not provide an adequate
throughput and cost efficiency in the short term,
due to the demanding processing capabilities of
these ADC platforms. The ADCs listed above are
equipment that has been optimized extensively
in terms of hardware, software, and cost and
so are not likely to be exchanged for virtualized
components within the next two to three years.
In terms of energy efficiency and cooling
requirements, Table 3 illustrates a direct
comparison.
Table 1: ADC specifications and list pricing
Parameter
L7 throughput
(Gbps)
HTTP Layer
7 RPS
List price
($)
Annual
maintenance
fees ($)
Citrix
NetScaler
25160T
160
4,600,000
$180,000
$30,600
F5 Viprion
2200 chassis
+ 2 x 2250
blades
160
4,000,000
$334,475
$56,860
Kemp LM5400
10.2
Table 3: Energy and cooling efficiency of ADCs
Maximum power
consumption (W)
Maximum heat
output (BTU/hour)
Citrix NetScaler 25160T
717
2,219
F5 Viprion 2200 chassis
+ 2 x 2250 blades
640
2,255
Kemp LM-5400
185
629
Note: Standard configuration includes 2 power supplies (2x850W)
Source: PEPPM database, vendor datasheets, secondary research and Ovum data
110,000
$17,990
$3,508
Source: PEPPM/OGS databases, vendor datasheets, secondary research, and Ovum data
An initial comparison illustrates that, although
a larger appliance is naturally more expensive,
processing capabilities, energy efficiency, and
several other parameters are cost-effective in
higher use. Although ADCs for smaller-scale and
lighter applications are likely to be adequate for
low processing and transactional capabilities, CSP
use is likely to require several powerful ADCs which
may even need to be scaled up from the use cases
outlined.
As expected, the more powerful ADCs are more
efficient in terms of power consumption and heat
output. It should be noted that these are maximum
power supply ratings and nominal use is likely to
result in much lower energy usage. However, CSP
are likely to require heavy use of these ADCs, which
will lead to energy performance that approximates
the maximum power consumption and energy output.
CSP scenarios
A current mid-sized operator – for example, a
Western European operator with a moderate
subscriber base – is likely to require approximately
© 2015 Ovum. All rights reserved. www.ovum.com
8
Figure 2: ADC capex for a mid-sized Western European CSP, 2013–17
Cumulative annual ADC capex
($000s)
F5 Viprion 2200 chassis
Netscaler 25160T
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Note: Capex not depreciated but only calculated for any given year
Source: Ovum calculations, PEPPM/OGS databases, vendor data sheets
Figure 3: Cumulative TCO (cumulative capex + annual opex) for ADCs, 2013–17
F5 Viprion 2200 chassis
Netscaler 25160T
Cumulative TCO ($000s)
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Note: Capex not depreciated but only calculated for any given year
Source: Ovum calculations, PEPPM/OGS databases, vendor data sheets
160Gbps of ADC capacity in early 2015. However,
this capacity is forecast to grow significantly in the
next few years: If we consider ADC capabilities for a
similar operator in 2013, operators then had deployed
approximately 70–80Gbps of capacity. Therefore,
CSPs of this size are likely to require approximately
360Gbps of ADC capacity for the next few years, but
only if our estimates just take a linear growth of the
existing services in consideration. If new services
(e.g. enterprise verticals, IoT), which require higher
capacity for CGNAT, traffic steering, optimization,
and load balancing, are taken into account then
these estimates are likely to be considered fairly
conservative. Moreover, overprovisioning of 100% has
been assumed throughout this study: For example, a
single ADC providing 160Gbps of throughput is able to
service 80Gbps of traffic.
The operator considered here is operating in a
well-developed and competitive market with a
subscriber base that is near the 30 million mark.
Of these subscribers, half are still connected via a
3G network but a growing subscriber base is LTEbased. The share of LTE subscriptions is expected to
radically increase within the next few years, fuelling
further growth in the Gi-LAN.
The TCO for CSP scenarios outlined in this section
only takes Citrix and F5 ADCs into consideration.
It is highly unlikely that Tier-1 CSPs will use the
smaller ADCs that are currently in the market,
particularly due to the large number of appliances
they would need.
Figure 2 illustrates ADC capex when considering the
ADC throughput requirements outlined above.
Similarly, power consumption and cooling are
included in the opex needed to run the ADCs. Annual
maintenance fees, approximately 17% of the upfront
cost for these ADCs, are also included in the TCO
model.
© 2015 Ovum. All rights reserved. www.ovum.com
9
Figure 3 illustrates that the more powerful
platforms provide considerable savings in terms of
opex, which increases proportionally to usage due to
energy and cooling costs. The higher capex cost also
increases maintenance fees, which increase with
the number of ADCs deployed.
As illustrated in the Ovum’s calculations, the
higher upfront cost of an ADC, coupled with
maintenance and power/cooling costs, results in
a much higher TCO, especially as more capacity
is required. In the scenario listed above, usage
during 2013–15 only requires a single ADC from
either vendor. However, both 2016 and 2017
experience significant traffic growth, which
cannot be serviced by existing ADCs, thus more
equipment is required which increases the TCO
significantly.
Conclusions
As new opportunities for CSPs emerge, there is new pressure to design, dimension, and deploy a
network for the long term. Enterprise services, IoT, and new data services are pushing CSPs to migrate
from the legacy physical domain to software and virtualization, with a renewed drive to become agile,
flexible, and responsive to user demands. The Gi-LAN is a ripe environment for service innovation and
most operators (and vendors) are assessing new service opportunities. The ADC is a thus a critical
component for evolving to a service-oriented network. Modern ADCs have evolved from just load
balancing and now offer a variety of services, which are applicable to enterprise services, LTE networks,
telco cloud and IoT.
Although current ADC deployments have focused on linear traffic dimensioning, new services in
the short term are likely to require more capacity in the Gi-LAN, followed by a significant growth
in the following years when the CSP business model includes cloud offerings and new verticals.
Therefore, there is now renewed pressure to deploy ADC platforms that can scale to a high capacity
at a manageable cost, rather than deploy smaller platforms that are likely to need upgrades or
expansions in the next two to three years. Given that the ADC market is experiencing healthy growth,
Ovum recommends that CSPs should assess the longer-term TCO impact of choosing the right ADC as
illustrated in the economic comparison outlined above.
© 2015 Ovum. All rights reserved. www.ovum.com
10
Citrix Brings New Levels of Efficiency with New ADCs
Citrix NetScaler is deployed by Tier 1 communications service providers globally in the network
core and data center, supporting over 150 million subscribers. It supports some or all S/Gi-LAN
subscriber traffic to accommodate growth in video, app, and Web traffic. As the no.1 application
delivery controller for cloud and Web service providers, NetScaler is ideally suited for CSP
initiatives to deploy automated networks and provide cloud services.
The Citrix NetScaler 25000 series is one of NetScaler’s newest appliances. Designed for the
mobile network, with the NetScaler 25000, CSPs can simplify their S/Gi-LAN, scale out network
capacity, lower their cost structure, and prepare for NFV.
Leveraging the latest merchant silicon, the 25000’s software architecture supports Layer 7 capacity
of 100 gigabits per second with paygrow to 160 gigabits per second and scale-out clustering to
more 3.5 terabits per second.
By offering a price-to-performance ratio that is 32% to 65% better than the competition, a CSP can
add 50% to 300% more capacity by using the 25000 at the same investment as existing ADCs.
They can deploy the 25000 at a superior total cost of ownership (TCO) to refresh existing ADC
deployments and/or expand ADC capacity for new or existing applications.
Unlike ADCs deployed in past years, the NetScaler 25000 can combine multiple services such
as load balancing, CGNAT, and subscriber-aware traffic steering at high performance. This
eliminates the need for a separate set of ADCs and their corresponding maintenance contracts and
operational expenses.
Because NetScaler is software-based, it provides feature and functional equivalence across all of
its virtual, appliance, and multi-tenant platforms. That means CSPs with the NetScaler 25000 can
transition the platform to a virtual, multi-tenant NetScaler 25000, the SDX 25000, while leveraging
the same knowledge, tools, and scripts.
© 2015 Ovum. All rights reserved. www.ovum.com
11
ABOUT OVUM
Ovum is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. Through its 180 analysts worldwide it offers expert
analysis and strategic insight across the IT, telecoms, and media industries. Founded in 1985, Ovum has one of the most
experienced analyst teams in the industry and is a respected source of guidance for technology business leaders, CIOs,
vendors, service providers, and regulators looking for comprehensive, accurate and insightful market data, research
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markets and provides thousands of clients with insight including workflow tools, forecasts, surveys, market assessments,
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For more details on Ovum and how we can help your company identify future trends and opportunities, please contact
us at [email protected] or visit www.ovum.com. To hear more from our analyst team join our Analyst Community
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ABOUT CITRIX
Citrix (NASDAQ: CTXS) is leading the transition to software-defining the workplace, uniting virtualization, mobility
management, networking, and SaaS solutions to enable new ways for businesses and people to work better. Citrix
networking solutions for mobile operators elevate subscriber quality of experience, economically scale data and
control planes, and enable the transition to next-generation networks. Citrix solutions are in use at more than 330,000
organizations and by more than 100 million users globally. Learn more at www.citrix.com.