Sharding is a database partitioning technique used to distribute data across multiple servers, enhancing the performance of cloud databases. It involves splitting large databases into smaller parts called ‘shards’, each holding a portion of the total data. Shards are distributed across different server instances, reducing the load on any single server and improving query response times.
In cloud computing, sharding is crucial for scalability as it allows databases to accommodate more data by adding more servers. This horizontal scaling strategy ensures that as the database grows, its performance remains consistent.
However, implementing sharding requires careful planning. The distribution must ensure balanced loads across all servers to prevent some shards from becoming bottlenecks. Also, related data should be co-located in the same shard to minimize cross-shard queries which can degrade performance.
