MEDIUMData Storagestaff engineer

Database Sharding Strategies

Explain different database sharding strategies and when to use each.

Estimated Time: 45 minutes
#databases#scalability#data-storage
Solution Overview

Sharding partitions data across multiple databases. Key strategies: hash-based, range-based, geographic, and directory-based sharding.

Hints to Get Started
1

Consider your access patterns

2

Think about data growth and distribution

Strategies

geographic

cons

  • Uneven load
  • Cross-region queries complex

pros

  • Low latency
  • Data locality compliance

description

Partition by user location

hash based

cons

  • Range queries are expensive
  • Resharding is complex

pros

  • Even distribution
  • Simple to implement

description

Hash the shard key to determine shard

range based

cons

  • Hot spots possible
  • Uneven distribution

pros

  • Efficient range queries
  • Easy to understand

description

Partition by ranges of shard key

directory based

cons

  • Lookup service is bottleneck/SPOF

pros

  • Flexible
  • Easy resharding

description

Lookup service maps keys to shards

Considerations
  • Choose shard key carefully
  • Plan for resharding
  • Handle cross-shard queries