Chapter Goals

You will learn about the following core content switching concepts in this Chapter:

• Content Switch Operational Modes—You can configure your content switch in router or bridge mode.

• Load Distribution Algorithms—Round robin, least connections, source IP address hashing, and server load are available for distributing content requests across your servers.

• Layer 5–7 Load Balancing—Content switches can inspect requests at Layers 5–7, in order to intelligently select server farms to service client requests.

• Health Checking—To determine the availability of servers, content switches use in-band or out-of-band health checks.

• Session Persistence—To forward client requests to the same server for the duration of a session, content switches can use session persistence technologies.

• Content Switch High Availability—To forward client requests to the same server for the duration of a session, content switches can use session persistence technologies.