Database Sharding Blog

Peter Wayner, an InfoWorld Test Center contributing editor, has conducted an interesting hands-on comparison of some of the leaders in cloud computing.

One interesting point that Wayner makes almost immediately in his report is that is that cloud computing, at least in the form of immediately availability of unlimited server capacity, does not deliver scalable applications:

After a few hours, the fog of hype starts to lift and it becomes apparent that the clouds are pretty much shared servers just as the Greek gods are filled with the same flaws as earthbound humans. Yes, these services let you pull more CPU cycles from thin air whenever demand appears, but they can't solve the deepest problems that make it hard for applications to scale gracefully. Many of the real challenges lie at the architectural level, and simply pouring more server cycles on the fire won't solve fundamental mistakes in design.

There are many benefits of cloud computing, especially the fact that hardware is now a commodity that is available on demand. However, there has been a general perception that using cloud computing providers such as Google or Amazon somehow magically delivers the same scalability as the applications provided by the these cloud computing providers. It should be remembered that providers such as Google and Amazon are also famous for their scalability because they shard their applications.

Labels: Database Sharding, Scalability Architecture, Scalability Economics