Scaling: Bigger or More Servers
One server can answer only so many requests each second. When more users come, you must scale. You can make the server bigger, or you can add more servers. This lesson shows both ways and their limits.
New words
- Scaling
- Making a system able to handle more users or more work.
- Vertical scaling
- Using one bigger and stronger machine.
- Horizontal scaling
- Using more machines that share the work.
- Load balancer
- A helper that sends each request to one of the servers.
- Stateless
- A server that keeps no user data between requests.
- Bottleneck
- The slowest part, which limits the speed of the whole system.
What you will learn
- The 10 am Tatkal rush
- Vertical scaling: a bigger machine
- Horizontal scaling: more machines
- Stateless servers
- Find the bottleneck
- Try it: survive the rush
- Auto-scaling
- Bigger or more servers: what do you gain and lose?
- In a real system
- Interview tip
- Key takeaways
10 quiz questions at the end.
The full lesson, with interactive demos and the quiz, opens after you sign in with Google. It is free.