Traffic Engineering Traffic engineering manipulates traffic flows between locations for optimal performance. Web site managers use QoS policing and shaping mechanisms to achieve these better response times. Another way to deliver first-class service is with congestion management and congestion avoidance. This capability leverages TCP's native ability to regulate a flow. Load Balancing, Caching, and Management Other strategies for optimizing performance at busy Internet or Web portal sites include load balancing and caching.
Load balancing is especially useful in very large Web sites.
Incoming sessions are distributed among servers according to policy. For instance, a Web site may have 100 servers, some of which are reserved for high-priority users. The QoS policy limits the number of sessions per reserved server to improve performance. Cisco LocalDirector provides this type of load balancing service while presenting a single IP address to the Internet. Web portal managers can also deploy caching for premier users.