The IESG has approved the Internet-Draft 'DHC load balancing algorithm' <draft-ietf-dhc-loadb-03.txt> as a Proposed Standard. This document is the product of the Dynamic Host Configuration Working Group. The IESG contact persons are Erik Nordmark and Thomas Narten. Technical Summary This document proposes a method of algorithmic load balancing of DHCP client requests. It enables multiple, cooperating servers to decide which one should service a client, without exchanging any information beyond initial configuration. The server selection is based on the servers hashing client MAC addresses into one of 256 hash buckets, and then consulting configuration information to determine whether a particular server is supposed to process requests that map into that bucket. The proposed techique provides for efficient server selection when multiple DHCP servers offer services on a network without requiring any changes to existing DHCP clients. The same method is proposed to select the target server of a forwarding agent such as a BOOTP relay. Working Group Summary The load balancing technique was originally developed as part of the server-to-server failover protocol work, but was made into a standalone document when it was realized that the idea had wider applicability than just within a server-to-server protocol. There was consensus in the WG for the technique in this document and no issues were raised during Last Call. Protocol Quality This document has been reviewed for the IESG by Thomas Narten.
