Hi,
Getting more and more off-topic, but regardless of what purists might think, load balancing is a crucial function (until TCP stack and/or socket API get fixed - read: not likely) and at least some of them do and will use some sort of NAT to do their job.
I think this is the key point. While providers are not putting up content on IPv6 for this reason, it is an issue.
Ok, so I see some consensus on the question, if load balancers are needed in RIPE-501 foloowup document or not. The answer is yes.
My question is, should we create new hw category for this or should we put it in any of existing category?
Merike, Sander, I'm inviting you back to drawing board to fix this request :)
Invitation accepted :-) The difficult bit is defining 'load balancer'... There are so many different ways to implement this, at different layers. I have seen layer-7 proxy based load balancers, but also layer-3 direct-routing ones, with other options in between. Some look like a client to the back end servers, but others need cooperation from those servers. The sum of load balancers and back end servers have to look like an end-node to the outside world, but inside anything (well, almost) is possible. So, can we compile a list of load balancing methods and can we specify what is needed for each method? Do we want to do this? Or can we say 'the server farm as a whole needs to behave like an end-node'? But I fully agree: we need to say *something* about load balancers! Sander