The LoadMaster series of load balancers support content switching, which is sometimes referred to a URL switching. This allows the LoadMaster to direct specific requests to specific Real Servers based on the contents of the requested URL.

For example, if you have two groups of servers; one group to serve images and the other to serve all other content - you can create content rules to separate these two classes of request.

Any URL that includes /images in it, such as “http://url.com/images/party.jpg” or “http://url.com/images/dogs.jpg” would be directed to server 3 and 4, while anything else would be directed to server 1 and 2.

This can be very useful if you have servers that perform different functions (application servers, static content servers, mapping servers, specialized content generation servers, etc.) that must all be served from the same general hostname (for example, www.websitename.com).

It is also possible to add header modification rules. For further details, refer to the Content Rules Feature Description.

Terminology

The term content switching does not refer to the process involved with Layer 2 switching. Instead, content switching refers to switching traffic between different servers, depending upon the content requested.

Using Content Switching

There are two parts to configuring content switching: the content rules, and the Virtual Service configuration. The content rules are configured globally on the LoadMaster and various rules are applied to specific Real Servers or SubVSs operating under a Virtual Service.