Brocade Virtual ADX Server Load Balancing Guide (Supporting ADX v03.1.00) - Manual (Page 259)

Brocade Virtual ADX Server Load Balancing Guide 243
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Chapter
5
Layer 7 Content Switching
Overview
CSW enables Layer 7 application content based traffic direction for non-HTTP protocols such as
Financial Information Exchange (FIX) protocol. This chapter describes the Layer 7 Switching
features in the Brocade Virtual ADX.
• “Layer 7 content switching” on page 243
• “Layer 7 content switching on HTTP response” on page 271
NOTE
Fast session synch is not supported in Layer 7 or TCP-offload configurations.
NOTE
You can define up to 255 policies and 1000 rules system wide. A maximum of 500 rules can be
defined under a single policy.
NOTE
Layer 7 content switching load balancing is not supported where both sticky connections and track
group features are configured.
NOTE
Alias ports should be treated like regular ports and should have the same server ID and group ID.
Layer 7 content switching
Layer 7 switching allows the Brocade Virtual ADX to make forwarding decisions about HTTP traffic
based on information in a URL, or cookie. Advanced Layer 7 content switching allows the Brocade
Virtual ADX to make forwarding decisions about HTTP traffic by analyzing information contained
within the traffic.
The advanced Layer 7 content switching provides an enhancement over the Layer 7 switching
feature available in previous Brocade Virtual ADX releases by allowing you to configure load
balancing based on multiple HTTP header fields and XML content. The Layer 7 switching feature
available in previous releases is limited to load balancing traffic based on hostname, URL, and
cookie fields in the HTTP header.
Specifically, the new Layer 7 content switching feature provides the following functionality:
• Load balancing based on any specified HTTP header
• Load balancing based on XML content
• Ability to make complex load-balancing decisions based on multiple HTTP headers or XML tags
• Support for redirecting requests to alternate URLs or domains