Cisco LocalDirector is a network appliance that load balances TCP/IP traffic across multiple servers. LocalDirector optimizes the performance of your site by distributing client requests across low-cost servers (called a server farm). LocalDirector reduces the cost of providing large-scale Internet services and accelerates user access to server farm applications. With LocalDirector you can build a highly redundant and fault-tolerant server farm system. Mission-critical application servers are automatically and transparently placed in and out of service, providing fault tolerance. LocalDirector itself is available with a hot-standby failover mechanism, which builds increased redundancy for the server farm system.The Cisco Local Director 417G, enabled by Gigabit Ethernet technology, is ideal for high-traffic Internet sites that require up to 400 Mbps of throughput and 30, 000 connections per second.