Scaling Vertically vs Scaling Horizontally
Be smart or throw money at the problem
The beauty of software development is that almost arbitrary many can profit from a developer’s work. Web services such as Facebook or YouTube have several hundred developers, but hundreds of millions of users. However, having many users is not for free. The servers need to do more work. At some point, the machine you started with is not enough.
After reading this article, you will know the difference between scaling vertically and scaling horizontally. Let’s go!
Vertical Scaling: Scaling up💸
The simplest solution when your server struggles is to buy a more powerful one. It might be more RAM, a better CPU, or a better network connection. Maybe even just a bigger hard disk.
Vertical scaling is awesome as long as it works. There are limits in what money can buy you. For example, CPU speed is limited. At some point, you’ve got the best that exists on the market. You might even approach physical limits.
Vertical scaling is an early solution as long as you don’t reach the territory where the limits are:
