Introduction

When it was first deployed, Cisco Systems' LocalDirector was positioned as a replacement solution for the "round-robin" redundancy and load-balancing methods used on the Internet. The networking and computing trade sheets referred to these devices as load balancers. However, when applied to LocalDirector, the load balancing term is actually a misnomer. While load balancers are able to equally distribute traffic loads across multiple servers, LocalDirector is capable of additional functions like scalability, high availability, server connection management, and server security.

Even with a highly secure network, one also needs to be certain there is some level of redundancy built into the network. This will ensure that attacks intended to suck up your bandwidth meet with a minimum of success.

LocalDirector can help you with this. On the other hand, there are many other devices that can complete this job more efficiently. The LocalDirector technology is somewhat outdated, and even Cisco is beginning to suggest other devices to perform these same functions. The replacement for LocalDirector is now Cisco Content Services Switch (detailed information on CSSs can be found in Chapter 10). Therefore, if you are only starting to add redundancy and distribution features to your server network, you might be interested in looking into CSS solutions first.

DistributedDirector is also a load-balancing solution used to distribute traffic between geographically distant servers. Again, these features were improved and further developed in the CSS product line.

Improving Security Using Cisco LocalDirector

Cisco's LocalDirector allows you to load-balance Internet resource...