Horizontal scaling: means that you scale by adding more machines into your Cloud architecture so that they work as a single unit.
Vertical scaling: means that you scale by adding more power to the existing machines in terms of more CPU, RAM and storage.
Benefits of scalable systems
A scalable system provides several benefits, here are the most important ones:
- higly-customizable infrastructure according to specific customer’s needs
- possibility of increasing or decreasing the system power according to the needs of the moment and the customer’s availability
- scalability ensure a minimum service level even in case of failure
Therefor, the benefits of a scalable infrastructure can be summarised in cost-saving and efficiency. The client can use a tailored Cloud architecture paying just the resources actually needed.
A practical example: Containers
Containers are a great example of Cloud infrastructure with maximum scalability: they enable both horizontal and vertical scaling and represent the most innovative and performing Cloud solution currently on the market. Containerized systems recognize automatically when increasing of computing power it’s needed, as well as is requested a decrease, so that the system can be maximum efficient without waste.
