The problem of scalability and the CAP theorem

The requirement for a system to be scalable means that a system that supports a business now, should also be able to support the same business with the same quality of service as it grows. Let's say a database can store 1 GB of data and effectively process 100 queries per second. What if with development of the business, the amount of data being processed grows 100 times? Will it be able to support 10,000 queries per second and process 100 GB of data? Maybe not now, and not in the same installation. However, a scalable solution should be ready to be expanded to be able to handle the load as soon as it is needed.

Usually, scalability comes together with the distributed architecture of a system. ...

Get Learning PostgreSQL 11 now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.