High Availability and Partitioning strategies

Question 1

What is Sharding in broad terms?

Answer 1

Splitting up the data between multiple servers. Together they represent the entire collection. Allows for better throughput as calculations and search are shared.

Question 2

What is a rule of thumb for High Availability?

Answer 2

Have redundant/passive/shadow everything. Eg. Loadbalancers, servers & data storage.

Question 3

What is vertical sharding?

Answer 3

Definition: Vertical sharding involves splitting a database table vertically, meaning different columns or attributes of a table are stored in separate shards. Vertical sharding is flexible in accommodating changes to the schema, as adding or removing columns typically affects only specific shards.

Question 4

When should you use Vertical sharding?

Answer 4

It is suitable when certain columns of a table are accessed more frequently than others, allowing for improved performance by isolating heavily used columns.

Question 5

What is Horizontal sharding?

Answer 5

Horizontal sharding involves distributing rows of a table across multiple shards based on a defined rule or algorithm, typically using a shard key. Horizontal sharding can be more challenging to modify since adding or removing shards might require redistributing the entire dataset.

Question 6

When should you use Horizontal sharding?

Answer 6

It is beneficial when the dataset is large and needs to be distributed across multiple servers to enhance performance and scalability.