San Jose, Calif. - Alteon Networks next week will add distributed server load balancing to its switches, which will redirect traffic intended for a Web site to another site that may be less busy or closer to the user.
Using Alteon switches, Web site providers will be able to maintain copies of a site in different locations. Requests coming from Europe could be directed to a site physically located in Europe, and requests from North America could be directed to a site there. That way, the user would get a faster response because the request wouldn't have to traverse an intercontinental link. This function is already performed by Cisco's DistributedDirector.
The Alteon switches at each of the providers' sites also communicate with one another using a proprietary protocol, exchanging information about their availability and response time. Because of this, the switches know which of the other sites are most available, and can redirect requests to those sites.
The switches already have the ability to balance loads among Web servers at a particular site. With the new feature, requests are routed to the most available site, and then to the most available server within that site.
The switches can also look at packets to see which URL is being requested, and can redirect traffic to the particular server that contains that URL.
The new features are available as a software upgrade to the Alteon ACEdirector 2 or ACEswitch 180 for $3,000. A new ACEdirector 2 lists for $13,995.
RELATED LINKS
