Cisco LocalDirector

Cisco LocalDirector was a server load balancing appliance, discontinued in 2003,[1] based on the Network Address Translation (NAT) technology Cisco Systems acquired when they bought Network Translation, Inc.

During the meeting, Robert Andrews told John Mayes that there were, "probably 10 customers in the world with a load balancing problem".

As a result of the NTI acquisition by Cisco Systems in late 1995, Brantley hired a team of four long-time associates who were developers: Richard Howes, now at Steelbox Networks, and Pete Tenereillo worked for NTI prior to the Cisco acquisition, and Jim Jordan and Tom Bohannon, also at SteelBox, were hired immediately after the acquisition.

[2] Though F5 and Cisco started development of a load balancing product around the same time, F5 needed to re-staff and re-develop after the first attempt.

It first shipped to a customer in April 1996, only four months after development started, beating the next earliest competitors, F5 and HydraWeb, to market by a full year.