Fine-Tuning for a Better, Faster, and More Secure Experience
While Citrix Secure Access is engineered to provide excellent performance and robust security out of the box, there are several configuration options that administrators can and should leverage to optimize the user experience further. A well-configured client not only strengthens security but also ensures that users can work productively without being hindered by slow connections, latency, or application performance issues. This guide explores some of the key settings and strategies you can employ to get the most out of your Citrix Secure Access deployment, striking the perfect balance between security and speed.
Intelligent Traffic Routing with Split Tunneling
Split tunneling is arguably one of the most effective techniques for optimizing remote access performance. In a traditional VPN, all of the user's internet traffic is routed through the corporate data center, a process known as "full tunneling." While this approach is secure, it can create significant performance bottlenecks, increase latency for cloud and SaaS applications, and consume valuable corporate bandwidth. Split tunneling offers a more intelligent alternative.
It allows administrators to define which traffic should be routed through the secure tunnel to corporate resources and which traffic can go directly to the internet. This has two major benefits:
- Reduces Latency and Improves User Experience: By not backhauling traffic destined for trusted SaaS applications like Office 365 or Salesforce through the corporate network, you can significantly reduce latency and provide a much faster, more responsive experience for users.
- Conserves Corporate Bandwidth: It frees up a significant amount of bandwidth on your corporate internet links, which can be particularly important for organizations with a large number of remote users. This also reduces the load on your security appliances.
Citrix Secure Access provides highly granular control over split tunneling. Administrators can configure split tunneling in several ways: 'on', 'off', or 'reverse'. In 'reverse' split tunnel mode, only the traffic destined for the internal network, as defined by the administrator, goes through the tunnel. All other traffic goes directly to the internet. This is often the recommended approach for most organizations. You can define traffic by IP address, FQDN, or even by application, giving you precise control over how traffic is routed.
Harnessing the Power of Enlightened Data Transport (EDT)
Citrix Secure Access utilizes Enlightened Data Transport (EDT), a proprietary, UDP-based transport protocol that is designed to provide a superior user experience, especially over challenging long-haul and mobile networks where packet loss and latency are common. Unlike TCP, which can be inefficient in these conditions, EDT is built for resilience and speed. It can adapt to changing network conditions in real-time, providing better throughput and lower latency.
Administrators have full control over the use of EDT. Within the Citrix Gateway configuration, you can set EDT as the preferred transport protocol, with TCP as a seamless fallback. This "adaptive transport" mechanism ensures that if a UDP connection cannot be established (for example, due to a restrictive firewall), the client will automatically fall back to TCP without any disruption to the user. For most scenarios, enabling EDT is highly recommended to deliver the best possible application performance and user experience.
Optimizing Gateway Selection for a Global Workforce
For organizations with a geographically dispersed workforce, it is critical to ensure that users are connecting to the closest and most performant gateway. Connecting to a gateway on the other side of the world will inevitably introduce latency and degrade the user experience. Citrix Secure Access addresses this challenge through intelligent gateway selection, often powered by Citrix's Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) capabilities.
GSLB can be configured to direct users to the optimal gateway based on a variety of metrics, including their geographical location (via their DNS resolver), network latency, and the current load on each gateway. This ensures that users always have the fastest and most reliable connection possible. As an administrator, it is important to ensure that your GSLB configuration is correctly set up and that your gateways are strategically located to serve your user base effectively.
Proactive Monitoring and Analytics for Continuous Improvement
Finally, to ensure optimal and sustained performance, it is crucial to proactively monitor the health and performance of your Citrix Secure Access environment. The solution provides a rich set of analytics and reporting tools, often integrated with Citrix Application Delivery Management (ADM). These tools give you deep insights into user activity, application performance, bandwidth consumption, and network conditions.
By regularly reviewing these analytics, you can proactively identify and address any performance bottlenecks or security issues before they impact a large number of users. For example, you might notice that users in a particular region are experiencing high latency and can investigate whether a new gateway is needed in that area. Or you might identify a misconfigured policy that is causing performance issues for a specific application. This data-driven approach to management is key to maintaining a high-performance, secure access environment.
By taking the time to carefully configure these settings and regularly monitor your environment, you can ensure that your Citrix Secure Access deployment is not just a security tool, but a true enabler of productivity for your organization.
