About packet forwarding
After the SteelHead has selected the right path, the next step is for it to steer traffic to the newly selected path. This operation is transparent to the client, server, and any networking devices such as routers or switches. SteelHead forwards packets either directly using distinct appliance physical interfaces, or indirectly using media access control (MAC) address rewriting. When these forwarding methods aren’t possible—for example, with virtual in-path deployments or where SteelHead is not in the same Layer-2 domain—the appliance uses DSCP marking with upstream policy-based routing.