Horizontal Scaling

What is Horizontal Scaling?

Horizontal scaling, also known as scaling out, refers to the process of increasing the capacity or performance of a system by adding more machines or servers to distribute the workload across a larger number of individual units.

Example - MongoDB, YouTube, Yahoo, Facebook, Amazon

Advantages of horizontal scaling

• Increased capacity: More nodes or instances can handle a larger number of incoming requests.

• Improved performance: Load can be balanced across multiple nodes or instances, reducing the likelihood of any one server becoming overwhelmed.

• Increased fault tolerance: If one node fails, incoming requests can be redirected to another node, reducing the risk of downtime.

Disadvantages of horizontal scaling

• Increased complexity: Managing multiple nodes or instances can be more complex than managing a single node.

• Increased cost: Adding more nodes or instances will typically increase the cost of the system.