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Content / Layer 4 - 7 Application Switching

Content switching, also called layer 4 C 7 application switching, is a technologydesigned to address the unique requirements of the explosive increase of Web traffic and complexity. Content/Layer 4-7 application switching intelligently load balances traffic across servers in a data center or point of presence (POP) based on the availability of the content and the load on the server.

Layer 4-7/Content switches can go far beyond connectivity and packet-routing services offered by traditional layer 2/3 switches.Content/Layer 4-7 switches route messages to individual machines by inspecting the contents of the messages and forwarding them to specific machines based on policies that meet the requirements of the device or application.Content switches (Layer 4 C 7 Switches) monitor the health of each of the devices and provide automatic failover by routing messages to the remaining devices in the tier, this again based on policies set to provide the desired behavior. Using sophisticated policies that are unknown to traditional LAN switches and routers, Content/Layer 4-7 switches provide intelligent traffic management capabilities, including local and global server load balancing, access control, quality-of-service, and bandwidth management.

Layer 4-7/content switches provide the following key benefits in complex and dynamic web services:

  • Content can be flexibly located.
  • 'Persistent' sessions can be maintained.
  • Servers can be used more efficiently.
  • Web site performance is improved.
  • Differentiated services and bandwidth management can be supported.
  • Virtual hosting can be supported.
  • Flexible content-based server health checks can be performed.

For all these capabilities, Layer 4-7 content-aware switching is becoming a mandatory traffic management service in new data center infrastructures.

Content / Layer 4C7 Application Switching

Content / Layer 4¨C7 Application Switching

Related Terms: Content switch, Layer 4-7 switch, Application switching

Reference Links: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns340/ns394/ns50/ns254/
networking_solutions_package.html: Content Switch Solution

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