The Cisco Content Switching Module (CSM) is a line card that balances client traffic to farms of servers, firewalls, SSL devices, or VPN termination devices. The CSM provides a high-performance, cost-effective load balancing solution for enterprise and Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks. The CSM meets the demands of high-speed Content Delivery Networks, tracking network sessions and server load conditions in real time and directing each session to the most appropriate server. Fault tolerant CSM configurations maintain full state information and provide true hitless failover required for mission-critical functions.