Part 145: Database Sharding & Horizontal Scaling Architecture

Scaling relational databases beyond the limits of a single physical server machine.

1. Sharding Architecture

                 [ Application Tier ]
                          │
          ┌───────────────┼───────────────┐
          ▼               ▼               ▼
      [ Shard 1 ]     [ Shard 2 ]     [ Shard 3 ]
     (Users 1-1M)   (Users 1M-2M)   (Users > 2M)

Data is partitioned across separate database instances using a Shard Key (e.g. tenant_id or user_id).

Key Takeaways

• Sharding distributes database storage and compute across a cluster of servers.

In Part 146, we explore Data Control Language (DCL): Users, Roles, GRANT & REVOKE!