Cisco Global Site Selectors (GSSs) are networking products that provide site selection services that are critical for disaster recovery deployments involving Internet and intranet data centers. The GSS globally load balances traffic between geographically distributed data centers managed by other server load balancers (SLBs) such as Cisco Content Services Switches and Cisco Content Switching Modules, IOS-SLBs, and Cisco LocalDirectors. The GSS is the cornerstone of disaster recovery in such distributed deployments and enables businesses to confidently deploy global Internet and Intranet applications with the knowledge that users will be quickly routed to standby data centers should problems occur.The Global Site Selector 4480 is deployed at strategic locations within your network. The GSS performs two major functions when deployed with other SLBs: 1) it takes an active role in the DNS infrastructure, connecting clients to SLBs that support the requested website; 2) it continuously monitors the load and availability of SLBs in its network, selecting the SLB that is most able to answer each client request. By off-loading Domain Name System (DNS) resolution from traditional DNS servers, the GSS optimizes global site selection and increases DNS responsiveness. Through the monitoring of load and availability, the GSS increases the fault tolerance and scalability of large websites and data centers.