Why Layer 7 (Application) Layer Switching
Today Layer 4 Web Switching limitations
- Best effort ? Anderson Consulting reported that more than 25% of on-line transactions never went through during 1999 Christmas shopping period
- Lack of mechanisms for connection differentiation & priority management
- Ratio of E-Browsers to E-Buyers is 3:1 (eAI Journal, 6/2000)
- Lack of mechanisms to protect servers from denial of service attacks
- Lack of flexibility of customization & quick service reconfiguration due to ASIC design
Access QoS control at application layer would alleviate limitations of today’s Layer 4-based web switches
- Wired speed L2-7 packet classification & service differentiation
- A HP case study reported in early 2000 that server-based QoS access feature may improve the Transaction Completion Rate from 48.5% (best effort) to 92.4%