Citrix has been among the companies helping applications move into the cloud, but there's a counterweight to that: Some applications need to keep a footprint in the branch office.

So, on Tuesday, Citrix is announcing a concept it calls Cloud Services Extended (CSX), a Windows-based approach for letting applications straddle the branch and the cloud.

The related product is the CloudBridge 2000WS, an appliance that provides WAN optimization for those applications that still need a footprint in the branch. To host those apps, the 2000WS comes with Windows Server and a hypervisor. The server can host functions such as Active Directory or DHCP, for instance.

The server can also host qualified applications from Citrix's partners, and in these cases, the WAN optimization side of CloudBridge would recognize the app and automatically apply the right quality-of-service. Citrix is launching the 2000WS with three such "Citrix-Ready" applications: the Qumu Video Control Center platform for video and webcasting; Talon's RemoteFAST storage caching; and Cortado's ThinPrint, which can handle printing for Citrix's XenDesktop environments.

The CloudBridge 2000WS is available now for $22,000 and up.