Distributed Systems Fundamentals · question
Q.03 of 34
What is the difference between horizontal and vertical scaling?
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Vertical Scaling (Scale Up):
- Adding more power (CPU, RAM, storage) to existing machines
- Simpler to implement and manage
- Limited by hardware constraints
- Single point of failure
- Example: Upgrading server from 8GB to 32GB RAM
Horizontal Scaling (Scale Out):
- Adding more machines to the system
- Better fault tolerance and theoretically unlimited scaling
- More complex to implement and coordinate
- Requires load distribution mechanisms
- Example: Adding more web servers behind a load balancer
Most modern distributed systems prefer horizontal scaling for better resilience and cost-effectiveness.
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