Understanding Big Data Scalability: Big Data Scalability Series, Part I

6. When to Scale Your Database

Your database tier is often the critical bottleneck in scaling your application; in fact, I refer to the database tier as the last mile of true scalability. It is important to know when to scale your database, so that you will be prepared when a scalable database tier is required.

This chapter covers these questions:

• What are the symptoms that indicate a database scalability requirement?

• When will simple optimization techniques work, and when do you need scale beyond a monolithic database instance?

• What are the phases of scaling the database tier that you should consider?

The Last Mile of Application Scalability

Since you are reading this book, I can safely assume you have an interest in scaling Big Data. ...