Ruby on Rails Database Sharding: A Quick Primer | Engine Yard Blog

Ruby on Rails Database Sharding: A Quick Primer | Engine Yard Blog:

Sharding is usually the final strategy to reach for when scaling a Ruby on Rails app: caching, offloading, and data segmentation are usually the first strategies to implement when scaling your application (they’re usually easier). It probably sounds obvious, but it’s always important to find out what part of your application needs help before you start re-architecting. If you’re having issues with your database, and you build a spiffy disk sharding scheme, you’ve just fixed a problem that doesn’t exist. So, doing the proper discovery will allow you to allocate your efforts for best effect. Finding your performance hotspots is very important in this process. A hotspot is a point in the architecture where you’re running at high percentages of capacity, or where your application is spending a lot of time. Hotspots are where the flames start. Knowing your points of pain allow ...

Full article: http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2009/a-quick-primer-on-sha...