Digest::Pearson is an implementation of Peter K. Pearson's hash algorithm presented in "Fast Hashing of Variable Length Text Strings" - ACM 1990. This hashing technique yields good distribution of hashed results for variable length input strings on the range 0-255, and thus, it is well suited for data load balancing. The implementation is in C, so it is fast. If you prefer a pure Perl version and can tolerate slower speed, you might want to consider Digest::Pearson::PurePerl instead. WWW: http://search.cpan.org/dist/Digest-MD5-Pearson/