NodeJS Scaling - Scaling the x-axis
To scale along the x-axis means to clone
your app. This means running the exact same application in another
instance, and then handling the traffic between the two instances instead of
one. For example, let's say you have a business or a server that
provides advice to clients. As word gets out about your business, you'll
be providing a lot of advice. This could lead to long lines and long wait
times among your clients.
How are
you going to deal with all this traffic?
Well, one option is to clone your
booth. That is to open more advice booths, and split the traffic
between them. Each booth provides the exact same service, and they each operate
independently on a part of the traffic. We just scaled our advice
booth across the x-axis. We can scale our node application, even the
monolith, by running separate instances of the same application and
then splitting the traffic between those instances.
We can scale further along the x-axis by
running multiple instances of our application on multiple machines. Today,
it's rather easy to scale our application by running multiple
instances across multiple data centers positioned worldwide. If a
particular area or region gets more traffic, you simply clone more
instances in that region.
