R
Rishikesh Baidya
Author
March 10, 202410 min read
Development
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Database scaling is one of the most challenging aspects of growing applications. Scale too early and you waste resources. Scale too late and you face downtime. At Softechinfra, our development team has scaled databases for high-growth products like AppliedView.
10x
Traffic Growth
99.99%
Uptime Target
50ms
Query P95
80%
Read Traffic
Warning Signs You Need to Scale
Slow Queries
Query times increasing beyond acceptable thresholds
Resource Exhaustion
High CPU, memory, or connection pool usage
Storage Limits
Approaching disk capacity or backup time growing
Replication Lag
Replicas falling behind primary database
⚠️ Before Scaling: Always optimize first—query tuning, proper indexing, connection pooling, and caching can defer scaling needs by months.
Scaling Strategies
| Strategy | When to Use | Complexity |
|---|---|---|
| Vertical (Scale Up) | Quick fix, moderate growth | Low |
| Read Replicas | Read-heavy workloads (80%+ reads) | Medium |
| Sharding | Write-heavy, massive scale | High |
| Caching | Hot data, repeated queries | Medium |
Read Replicas
"Most applications are 80%+ reads. Read replicas let you scale reads almost infinitely while keeping a single write primary. It's the first horizontal scaling step for most teams."
Benefits
- Scale read capacity horizontally
- Geographic distribution for latency
- Analytics queries on replicas
- Failover candidates for HA
Sharding Strategies
Analyze
Choose Key
Plan Split
Migrate
Monitor
Sharding Approaches
- Range-based: User ID 1-1000 → Shard 1
- Hash-based: Hash(user_id) % shards
- Geographic: By region/country
- Tenant-based: Per-customer shards
Caching Layer
✅ Real Result: Adding Redis caching to ExamReady reduced database load by 70% and improved average response time by 3x.
- Cache frequently accessed, rarely changing data
- Implement TTL-based expiration strategy
- Plan for cache invalidation on writes
- Monitor cache hit rates (target 80%+)
Database Selection
| Database | Best For |
|---|---|
| PostgreSQL | Complex queries, JSON, general purpose |
| MySQL | Simple schemas, read-heavy workloads |
| MongoDB | Flexible schema, horizontal scaling |
| Redis | Caching, sessions, real-time features |
💡 Pro Tip: Use managed database services (RDS, Cloud SQL, Supabase) unless you have dedicated database expertise. The operational overhead of self-managing is significant.
For related architecture patterns, see our Microservices Communication Guide.
Scaling Your Database?
Our development team designs and implements robust data architectures that scale with your growth.
Discuss Database Architecture →Learn more in our Terraform Guide and see database scaling in action on AppliedView.
Tags:
DatabaseScalingPerformanceArchitecturePostgreSQL