Layer 4–7 switch, web switch, or content switch



Layer-4 switching means hardware-based layer-3 switching technology that can also consider the type of network traffic (for example, distinguishing between UDP and TCP). Layer-4 switching provides additional datagram inspection by reading the port numbers found in the transport layer header to make routing decisions (i.e. ports used by HTTP, FTP and VoIP). These port numbers are found in RFC 1700 and reference the upper-layer protocol, program, or application.

Using layer-4 switching, the network administrator can configure a layer-4 switch to prioritize data traffic by application. Layer-4 information can also be used to help make routing decisions. For example, extended access lists can filter packets based on layer-4 port numbers. Another example is accounting information gathered by open standards using sFlow.

A layer-4 switch can use information in the transport-layer protocols to make forwarding decisions. Principally this refers to an ability to use source and destination port numbers in TCP and UDP communications to allow, block and prioritize communications.[4]

Layer 4–7 switch, web switch, or content switch

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Some switches can use packet information up to OSI layer 7; these may be called layer 4–7 switches, content switches, content services switches, web switches or application switches.

Content switches are typically used for load balancing among groups of servers. Load balancing can be performed on HTTP, HTTPS, VPN, or any TCP/IP traffic using a specific port. Load balancing often involves destination network address translation so that the client of the load-balanced service is not fully aware of which server is handling its requests. Some layer 4–7 switches can perform Network address translation (NAT) at wire speed. Content switches can often be used to perform standard operations such as SSL encryption and decryption to reduce the load on the servers receiving the traffic, or to centralize the management of digital certificates. Layer-7 switching is a technology used in a content delivery network (CDN).

Some applications require that repeated requests from a client are directed at the same application server. Since the client isn't generally aware of which server it spoke to earlier, content switches define a notion of stickiness. For example, requests from the same source IP address are directed to the same application server each time. Stickiness can also be based on SSL IDs, and some content switches can use cookies to provide this functionality.

Layer-4 load balancer

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The router operates on the transport layer and makes decisions on where to send the packets. Modern load balancing routers can use different rules to make decisions on where to route traffic. This can be based on least load, or fastest response times, or simply balancing requests out to multiple destinations providing the same services. This is also a redundancy method, so if one machine is not up, the router will not send traffic to it.

The router may also have NAT capability with port and transaction awareness and performs a form of port translation for sending incoming packets to one or more machines that are hidden behind a single IP address.

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