PowerLink and ShieldLink determine where to send traffic based on advanced WAN link load balancing algorithms that take into account such things as bandwidth utilization, packet loss, etc. Network administrators are able to set these policies to define how traffic will be directed among multiple and diverse ISP links to make the most of their bandwidth investments. With Ecessa products, outgoing load balancing is handled at the TCP/UDP session layer. The user defines weights (bandwidth capacity) based on the bandwidth of the WAN links. When a session is generated from the LAN, PowerLink and ShieldLink compute which link has the most available bandwidth and routes traffic from that session over that particular WAN link. PowerLink and ShieldLink allow the selection of two load balancing algorithms: (1) symmetrical round robin or (2) intelligent (weighted) load balancing. The symmetrical round robin will route sessions to all links in a round robin manner. The intelligent load balancing will compute a ratio between the weight (bandwidth capacity) of the different WAN lines, and then route sessions accordingly. That is, the faster the link, the more sessions that will be sent over that link, in order to make the most efficient use of all the bandwidth available.

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