Keep in mind this is more than a decade ago. Sharding was almost certainly state-of-the-art and exotic back then (hell, it's arguably pretty unusual in the wild even today, even if a lot more mature of a concept).
Oh, of course! I did not wish to come of as arrogant. I just wanted to add the term (for easier googling if someone is interested) and a note that it's no longer necessary to modify your api to use that strategy.