5 Database Scaling Solutions You Need to Know

How to effectively scale your database, and the processes involved in selecting appropriate database scaling patterns.

Scaling Diagram Abstract Illustration | Created by Author

If your application is experiencing load problems, time to bring out the champagne! Your web-app must be pretty successful to get to this stage. You’ve reached the capacity number of users that your application is able to handle, things are beginning to slow down and error out. Network requests start timing out, database queries are taking a while to execute, pages are loading slowly. Congratulations — your app is ready to scale! Time to put that champagne down though… You need to handle these growing pains before your users leave your app for that annoying competitor copying your idea.

The Costs Of Scaling

Before you start vertically, horizontally and inside-out* sharding your database, an important principle should be kept in mind. You shouldn’t implement premature optimizations or attempt to scale your app before it’s actually needed. Implementing scaling solutions introduces the following complexities:

• Adding new features takes longer
• The system becomes more complex with more pieces and variables involved
• Code can be more…