Sharding in Ethereum

Fundamentals and basics

Suraj Shukla
Aug 31, 2018 · 3 min read

Overview

This article is basically to make everyone understand the basics and utility of sharding in ethereum and it’s use cases related to ethereum. In a meeting the ethereum core devlopment team decided to release sharding and Casper together and they rescheduled the release date anyways, as a blockchain enthusiast I found the need to explain the Sharding to each and every Ethereum Investor.

Definitions

You will come across these terms in article so defining them below,

Node:- A node is a device on a blockchain network, that is in essence the foundation of the technology, allowing it to function and survive. Nodes are distributed across a widespread network and carry out a variety of tasks

Scalability:- The scalability refers to the discussion concerning the limits of the amount of transactions on the blockchain network can process.

Example:- Ethereum network can process 15operations/sec

Shard:- Sharding is a type of database partitioning that separates very large databases into smaller, faster, more easily managed parts called data shards. The word shard means a small part of a whole.

(in reference to centralized data management)


What is sharding on ethereum?

  • Sharding is an age old data management done by developers but in a centralized manner.
  • Sharding on decentralized network is done first time on the ethereum network
  • Sharding on Ethereum is parallelising the computational Power to be able to process high number of operations on the Ethereum network

Why sharding is important for Ethereum?

  • Increasing number of users causing clogging of the network due to low scalability. It will increase the operational power of the Ethereum blockchain.
  • To run large Decentralized Applications on the Ethereum.
  • Currently Ethereum network is like the old 90’s computer which needs to upgrade
  • Bitcoin solved the scalability problem with help of segwit and lightning network which caused the hard fork of the blockchain
  • Ethereum wants to achieve scalability in other way without splitting the community by hard fork.

How it will work?

  • The Ethereum network will be split in different parts (Shards) and the nodes will carry operations within that shard
  • In this way the various nodes will be able to perform faster than being in an whole network
  • The nodes within shard will be able to perform faster because the number of operation will reduce and will be distributed within that shard.
  • Example for the working of sharding
  • If Tom is asked to lift a weight of 50kg and walk till the distance of 1km then the speed of walking will be lowered on the other hand if Tom hires 5 people to help him then the distance of 1min will be covered within few minutes.
  • In above case Tom is the whole network the other 5 are the shards and the weight is the operation they carry and the time required to cover the distance is scaling

Problems in Ethereum sharding

  • The main problem is Sharding can easily be done on centralized network but Ethereum is decentralized so, Implementing Sharding on decentralized platform would be magic.
  • The above image showing the Problem related to scalability either of the 2 factors are taken into consideration all 3 cannot remain in the blockchain so Ethereum is trying to bring all the 3 Factors with the help of Sharding
  • The nodes from a shard cannot communicate with the nodes of another shard
  • The communication between the nodes of different shards is a very difficult engineering question .
  • To run a proper blockchain network the shards need to be connected which is difficult in an decentralized network

Thanks for giving your time to read my article related to sharding. This was just my attempt to explain Sharding in layman’s language. If you have any questions or want to correct me then you can freely contact Crypto Dentist ⚡ (@Suraj_Crypto): https://twitter.com/Suraj_Crypto?s=09 On Twitter all questions and criticism will be replied.

Once again thanks everyone

Suraj Shukla

Written by

Dentist by Profession , Blockchain Enthusiast , Reiki Healer and an Investor

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