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Fortune 100 Avoids Millions in NetScaler Renewals With 10x Faster Migration

OpsWerks played a critical role in migrating 1,600+ NetScaler appliances and 9,300 VIPs across multiple business units and global data centers — accelerating execution, reducing risk, and maintaining full business continuity.

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Challenge
 
Massive renewal costs.
 
Complex, multi-region footprint (1,600+ appliances, 9,300 VIPs).
OpsWerks Impact
10× faster migration than internal teams
90% migration cost savings
Zero unplanned downtime
Millions saved in renewal fees
Multi-region cutovers delivered with 24/7 dedicated team
Result

Enterprise-scale migration completed safely, ahead of schedule, and without disruption.

Client background

A global technology enterprise operated one of the largest and most complex NetScaler deployments in the world, powering mission-critical network services across the U.S. and China.

The environment included 1,600+ physical devices and nearly 9,300 Virtual IPs (VIPs) routing terabits of live traffic daily. Years of updates across multiple teams and data centers resulted in the world’s most complex NetScaler footprint.

When Citrix went private, contract negotiations no longer aligned with the enterprise’s expectations; renewal costs massively increased and Citrix’s new strategies left minimal room for negotiation.

Faced with substantial cost pressures and reduced flexibility from a now-private vendor, the enterprise recognized the risk of being locked into a single provider that could dictate terms without accountability.

This forced a strategic pivot: migrate to a new load balancer based on an open-source platform to regain control, reduce vendor dependency, and hedge against future pricing volatility. The project had an aggressive deadline and zero tolerance for downtime across their global user base.

NetScalers decommissioning challenges

Unprecedented scale and complexity

The customer had the third-largest NetScaler footprint globally, with configuration complexity exceeding any deployment worldwide. Multiple business units maintained distinct environments, change processes, and dependencies.

High-volume, high-stakes traffic

Each migration affected terabits of live production traffic. Even a minor misconfiguration could cause visible global impact across services used by hundreds of millions of users.

Tight global deadline

The program required end-to-end migration—from initial audit to hardware decommissioning—within nine months across distributed teams and data centers in the U.S. and China.

NetScaler migration process

OpsWerks embedded engineers directly with internal teams to lead a phased, automation-driven NetScaler migration with zero unplanned downtime.

1
Phase 1: Audit and Classification
  • Audited ~9,300 VIPs across U.S. and China environments.
  • Analyzed 60–90 days of live traffic to identify active vs. inactive VIPs.
  • Developed automation scripts for inventory, testing, and burn-down reporting.
  • Validated ownership across dozens of internal service teams.
2
Phase 2: Configuration and Cutover
  • Built equivalent configurations on the new load balancer.
  • Executed controlled traffic cutovers with continuous monitoring.
  • Introduced “logical decommissioning” for rapid rollback if needed.
  • Extended OpsWerks coverage through early production phases.
  • Created dashboards for real-time migration tracking.
3
Phase 3: Decommissioning and Standardization
  • Monitored post-cutover traffic to confirm stability.
  • Safely decommissioned 1,600+ physical NetScaler appliances.
  • Standardized runbooks, tribal knowledge, and monitoring documentation.
 

Scope of work

  • Global audit of ~9,300 VIPs
  • Conversion of NetScaler configurations to new load balancer
  • Live traffic cutovers with rollback readiness
  • Development of automation tools and visibility dashboards
  • Coordinated decommissioning of 1,600+ NetScaler physical appliances
  • Standardized runbooks and repeatable process documentation
  • Continuous collaboration with internal teams across U.S. and China

The OpsWerks advantage

Global scale, zero downtime

Executed one of the largest and most complex NetScaler migrations ever attempted, with no unplanned outages.

Automation under pressure

Built custom tools and dashboards that accelerated validation, improved visibility, and enabled safe parallel execution.

Operational trust earned

After early success, OpsWerks’ responsibility was elevated from dev and staging environments to take on production environment cutovers.

10× faster migration velocity

Our 24/7 dedicated team delivered a global, enterprise-scale NetScaler migration nearly 10× faster than internal teams (based on initial migration velocity).

Technical Results

Physical devices
1,600+ NetScaler appliances
Virtual IPs (VIPs)
~9,300 audited and migrated
Deadline
Completed in 9 months
Downtime
Zero unplanned outages
Automation
Custom-built audit and visibility tools
Regions
U.S. and China data centers from dev to production environments
Live traffic re-routing
Terabits per second across global services

Business Results

Nearly 10x faster migration completion with 24/7 dedicated team.

Over 90% migration cost savings with OpsWerks vs internal team.

Multi-millions saved from avoiding NetScaler massive renewal increase.

Zero unplanned downtime maintained services for 100’s of millions of users.

Enabled internal teams to instead stay focused on high-value strategic initiatives of migration work.

Facing Similar
Challenges?

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About OpsWerks

OpsWerks partners with world-leading engineering organizations to design, operate, and evolve reliable systems at scale. From managed services to complex infrastructure migrations, OpsWerks ensures uptime, performance, and peace of mind so engineering teams can stay focused on innovation.