Hello 👋 & welcome to the 2nd post 🧵 of System Design by @mukeshkuiry
Let's chat about a key system design concept! We're diving into "Horizontal and Vertical Scaling." 📊📈🖥️
In simple terms, scalability 🗄️ refers to the ability of an application to handle the increased 📈 traffic load without sacrificing latency.
The server should be powerful 💪 enough to handle the increased workload.
There are mainly two ways to scale things up.
Horizontal scaling
Horizontal scaling, often known as "scaling out," is the process of increasing the number of nodes and machines 🖥️ in the resource pool.
In simple terms, Imagine you have a bakery 🍰 and need more customers. Instead of making a bigger oven, you add more ovens to keep up with demand. This is like horizontal scaling!
Horizontal scaling allows for easier scaling through hardware additions, providing enhanced flexibility, 📈 minimizing downtime, and offering redundancy. 🔄🛡️
While the initial setup cost is higher 💹 and it's harder to maintain.
Vertical scaling
Vertical scaling, also known as "scaling up," is the process of increasing the existing system, such as CPU or RAM 💽, to meet the rising demand.
Now, picture you have a computer 💻, and it's getting slow because you're running many applications. To make it faster, you upgrade its CPU and RAM. This is vertical scaling!
Vertical scaling offers low 🔻 cost scaling, less complexity, and easier to maintain.
While it possesses more downtime 📉 possibilities, less flexible, and there is also a single point of failure ❌ .
Which one to choose?
Choosing the right scaling method depends on various factors:
• Performance 🚀: When dealing with computationally intensive tasks, vertical scaling is your go-to choice.
• Cost 💰: If you're on a tight budget, vertical scaling is the economical option, as horizontal scaling tends to be pricier.
• Future-proofing 🌟: To boost your business performance and prepare for future growth, horizontal scaling is the way to go.
• Flexibility 🧩: If expanding your codebase seems complicated, horizontal scaling offers greater flexibility.
• Topographic distribution 🗺️: For a nationwide user base, horizontal scaling is the way to go. But if your users are concentrated in a single city, vertical scaling may be the better fit.
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