Memcached vs. HW Load Balancer w/sticky sessions
All,
I've been doing some research on when (and when not) to use Memcached.  I'm familiar with distributed caching in terms of it's core objectives.  Using Memcacached/similar makes sense to me if you've got a few servers...as it would give you central virtual repository to get your cached data.  

That said, if you have a hardware load balancer (say F5's BigIP) that can do sticky sessions - is having a distributed cache as advantageous?  AFAIK, it seems like the only thing you'd be doing in this case is ensuring you aren't leveraging your web server(s) RAM for cache.  Are there any other benefits to leveraging memcached in an environment where you've already got HW based load balancers that are leveraging sticky sessions?  

As far as I know, having sticky sessions on does not cost much in terms of performance.  Obviously, I could be wrong.
Memcached vs. HW Load Balancer w/sticky sessions
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All,
I've been doing some research on when (and when not) to use Memcached.  I'm familiar with distributed caching in terms of it's core objectives.  Using Memcacached/similar makes sense to me if you've got a few servers...as it would give you central virtual repository to get your cached data.  

That said, if you have a hardware load balancer (say F5's BigIP) that can do sticky sessions - is having a distributed cache as advantageous?  AFAIK, it seems like the only thing you'd be doing in this case is ensuring you aren't leveraging your web server(s) RAM for cache.  Are there any other benefits to leveraging memcached in an environment where you've already got HW based load balancers that are leveraging sticky sessions?  

As far as I know, having sticky sessions on does not cost much in terms of performance.  Obviously, I could be wrong.