Cisco CSS11501 is a Content Services Switch (CSS) from the Cisco 11500 Series, designed for Layer 4–7 application delivery, load balancing, and traffic management in enterprise and data center environments.
Unlike traditional switches or routers, this device operates as an application-aware traffic director, sitting in front of server farms to distribute user sessions efficiently and improve application performance and availability.
It was widely used in early data center architectures for web hosting, application scaling, and server load balancing.
Key Features
- Layer 4–7 content switching / load balancing
- Application-aware traffic distribution (HTTP, TCP, UDP, etc.)
- 8 × 10/100 Ethernet ports + optional Gigabit uplink
- Advanced services:
- Server load balancing
- SSL acceleration (optional modules)
- Compression support (on some variants)
- NAT and stateful session handling
- High availability features:
- Adaptive Session Redundancy (ASR)
- Designed for web server farms and enterprise data centers
- CLI + GUI management (Cisco WebNS / CiscoView depending on software version)
Technical Specifications
- Part Number: CSS11501
- Series: Cisco CSS 11500 Content Services Switch
- Ports: 8 × Fast Ethernet (10/100 Mbps)
- Uplink: Optional 1 × Gigabit Ethernet (via SFP)
- Form Factor: 1U rack-mount appliance
- Throughput: up to ~6 Gbps (architecture dependent)
- SSL Performance: up to ~1400 transactions/sec (with modules)
- Load Balancing Type: Layer 4–7 (application-aware)
- Management: CLI, SNMP, HTTP GUI tools (platform/software dependent)
- OS Platform: Cisco WebNS / CSS software
- Use Case: Server load balancing, application delivery, web traffic management
90 DAY'S
