Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers

Scaling Up and Out

Scaling is the process of adding resources to a system so it can handle increased workloads. In the n-tier architecture we have described throughout this volume, an application is divided into logical units (tiers) organized into layers for user interface, business rules, and database access. These tiers do not necessarily map to servers on a one-to-one basis. When it comes to scaling a solution, we have options on which tier to bolster in order to provide the needed performance and availability. While there are many approaches to achieving scalability, they may be divided into two broad categories: scaling up and scaling out. The first approach is to create bigger and bigger boxes (such as servers) and the second is to set ...