Data Sharding

Question 1

What is sharding or data partitioning?

Answer 1

Breaking up a database into smaller parts

Question 2

Why would you shard a database?

Answer 2

In order to scale, split up among multiple machines

Question 3

Horizontal partitioning

Answer 3

put different rows into different tables

Question 4

What is a con of horizontal partitioning?

Answer 4

Must choose range values carefully so the servers are not unbalanced

Question 5

Vertical partitioning

Answer 5

Divide data based on specific features (ie users on one server, posts on another, etc)

Question 6

What is a con of vertical partitioning?

Answer 6

If the application experiences additional growth, it may be necessary to partition further

Question 7

Directory based partitioning

Answer 7

create a lookup service that knows the partitioning scheme and abstracts it away from the DB code. Query the directory server to figure out what DB to look at