Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling Simplified
What do you mean by Scaling ?
In simple words, Scaling basically mean lifting up performance of an existing system or building a new system that enhances the productivity of the earlier one. In System Design both Horizontal & Vertical Scaling are important & one should have a high level knowledge of that. So let’s deep dive below along with a real world example.
1. Horizontal Scaling -
Also known as scaling out, horizontal scaling involves adding more machines or instances to your system to distribute the load
Imagine you’re running a popular online store. Initially, you start with one server handling all incoming traffic. As your store gains popularity and more customers visit your website, a single server might struggle to handle the load. To address this, you add more servers and use a load balancer to distribute incoming requests evenly among these servers. This is horizontal scaling — It’s is like adding more checkout counters to a store to handle more customers.
2. Vertical Scaling -
Vertical scaling, or scaling up, involves increasing the resources (such as CPU, RAM, or storage) of an existing machine to handle more load.
Continuing with the online store example, let’s say instead of adding more servers, you upgrade your existing server by adding more RAM, a faster CPU, and additional storage. This allows your single server to handle more incoming requests and process transactions more efficiently. Vertical scaling is akin to upgrading a computer’s hardware components to improve its performance.
Pros & Cons -
That’s it! You’ve covered the terminologies needed to dive into building great systems. Feel free to follow me and share your thoughts on what else I can improve.
See you in the next part! 😊
