KEMP Technologies, Inc. Content Switch

A content switch is a network device that routes traffic to the appropriate web server based on the URL of the request. Also known as an Application delivery controller, URL switch, Web content switch, content switch and Layer 7 switch. A web switch is designed to provide improved Layer 7 content switching for a website because different requests can be routed to the most efficient source for delivering their content. For example, streaming audio and video, which have long-lived "sticky" connections, might be better served from a dedicated server or from a server. Rather than having all the servers in a server farm doing everything from serving up static content, transactions and delivering multimedia, organizations use content switches to direct users to the dedicated servers best suited to handling the users requests.