Scott Tyler Shafer and Wayne Rash

As SSL acceleration and load-balancing technologies have matured, the locus of their operations has moved from the server to network devices. And established vendors such as Cisco Systems Inc. have integrated the functionality of these technologies into their application switches. Now, packet inspection is giving birth to a host of new capabilities, including rate limiting, QoS (quality of service), and security functions, thanks to even deeper content-and application-awareness.

As SSL acceleration and load-balancing technologies have matured, the locus of their operations has moved from the server to network devices. And established vendors such as Cisco Systems Inc. have integrated the functionality of these technologies into their application switches. Now, packet inspection is giving birth to a host of new capabilities, including rate limiting, QoS (quality of service), and security functions, thanks to even deeper content-and application-awareness.