horizontal scaling

Definition

Adding more servers to distribute load rather than making existing servers more powerful. It's the 'hire more workers' approach versus the 'give workers steroids' approach, and generally works better at internet scale.

Example Usage

We can't vertically scale anymore—time to add horizontal scaling by spinning up more application servers.

Origin

Emerged from distributed computing discussions in the 1990s-2000s, contrasted with 'vertical scaling'

Fun Fact

Google runs on horizontal scaling to the extreme—millions of relatively weak servers rather than a few supercomputers, because buying in bulk from the lowest bidder is their love language.

Source: Distributed systems and scalability architecture patterns

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