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Understanding Database Scalability: Top 10 Secrets Tech Companies Won't Tell You!

March 13th, 2025
database scalability how to handle high traffic loads.

Introduction

While comprehending database scalability is a straightforward concept, its intricacies can differ among individuals. Be it a startup, an A-list SaaS, or an e-commerce company, everyone needs a foolproof business scalability strategy to thrive in their respective markets. Understanding database scalability can help you in certain ways related to business advancements!

However, who might be willing to share their insights on achieving business scalability with you?

Why Does Understanding Database Scalability Matter?

Why Does Understanding Database Scalability Matter?.

Business scalability is a crucial factor, though not every company wants to disclose its key insights leading to business success. Most businesses market their solutions as 'infinitely scalable,' but the underlying reasons remain hidden. In this blog post, we will help you learn the hidden secrets and scalability-oriented best practices for SaaS product engineering services.

If you are also a programmer, experiencing traffic loads isn't a new challenge to overcome for you. Handling millions of user/customer requests through a single code isn't for the immature developer either. You need to make sure the application does not slow down or gets crashed during the whole process. Furthermore, choosing the right programming paradigm, language, and code optimization plays a vital role in scaling the resources.

In this digitally busy world, often delayed product/application responses can cost you customer disinterest and skips. So even a split-second delay can cause significant harm to your brand's reputation. Knowing how to perform under pressure is necessary, in fact, mandatory. Just imagine your product/website is experiencing huge visitor traffic but suddenly crashes under unbalanced circumstances.

No one wants to face defeat standing right next to success!

So what are the best factors you must know?

Let's uncover the top 10 secrets to a full-fledged understanding of database scalability here,

Want Super Professional Help with Scalability?

Look nowhere apart from the team of Acquaint Softtech! We offer highly scalable, manageable, and flexible business solutions at the most cost-effective rates. Get a free trial of our product scalability services now!

Top 10 Secrets to Understanding Database Scalability Better

Secrets to Understanding Database Scalability Better.

1. Vertical scaling is not infinite

You're welcome! But vertical scaling isn't any permanent solution for business scaling. 

The mantra is not infinite scaling but consistently adopting product scalability measures. Talking about vertical scaling, it holds its hidden limits. However, big technology companies market their SaaS product engineering services as an infinitely scalable and beneficial business solution. But to note here is that vertical scaling scope gets limited by hardware constraints.

A cost-efficient tip: Max out disk space, CPU, and RAM; you'll eventually experience more performance.

A better solution: horizontal scaling, as mentioned below 

2. Horizontal scaling isn't the easiest

By definition, horizontal scaling is all about distributing the workload across multiple servers through data sharding and data replication processes. Adopting this option from the outset will prevent your product application from experiencing significant workload stress. Tech companies often showcase their ability to quickly scale your business using this method.

But they won't tell you how tedious horizontal scaling is.

Horizontal scaling is challenging because it necessitates significant changes at the product level throughout the entire implementation cycle. At times, you may face challenges like

  • Redesigning queries

  • implementing distributed transactions, or

  • refactor applications

Cost-effective tip: To run databases effectively, use only the ones with horizontal partitioning as built-in support.

3. Not all workloads scale equally in read vs. write scaling.

Write-heavy products/applications struggle a lot to scale. Services claiming to understand database scalability better will also understand that scaling reads is easier compared to scaling writes. 

You can also figure this out as most software product engineering companies will try to sell you read replicas featuring distributed read queries. Actually, when you write most of the data, then even high-end business databases will face obstacles in scaling, as written data are heavier.

Cost-effective tip: Distribute written data loads with multi-master replication.

4. Automatic scaling isn't fully automatic

Almost all software product engineering services advertise the availability of "auto-scaling" databases for business scalability. But even the automatic ones also require human interventions at times. The truth is that most auto-scaling system setups require;

  • manual tuning,

  • periodic adjustments, and

  • pre-configured thresholds

Cost-effective tip: You can implement a dedicated software expert team with absolute knowledge of utilizing AI-driven scaling tools and Kubernetes operators. It will ensure a better platform for automated business scalability.

5. Indexing isn't always good

Well, indexing is a factor that sounds quite relieving, but too many cooks spoil the food.

If you are unfamiliar with the process of indexing, you may encounter the following issues:

  • Adding improper indexing will lead to bloating.

  • System bloating will lead to data fragmentation and, furthermore to performance degradation.

  • Improper indexing can either enhance or degrade your system's performance.

  • Index addition, though, improves read performance, but at the price of slowing down writes.

  • Excessive indexing directly increases update costs.

  • Over-indexing increases data storage.

Cost-effective tip: Utilize optimized indexes according to the system's needs and regularly monitor slow queries.

6. Database locks may hinder system performance

Sounds unbelievable, but system database locks can secretly increase your cost to maintain the system's performance. The reason being that some databases may cause system slowdown by secretly locking the entire page, including its rows or tables. 

When multiple transactions occur, they all compete for resources, and the entire database locking can slow down this process, destroying the system's performance.

So lock contention ultimately leads to

  • deadlocks

  • transaction rollbacks, and

  • High query latency

Cost-effective solution: Opting for traditional locks isn't going to pay you off fully; you must utilize optimistic concurrency control (OCC) instead.

7. Data sharding is a mixed blessing

In reality, data sharding is a double-edged sword. In horizontal scaling, data sharding is a go-to technique. It may seem easier, but cut to the core; it's operationally complex. 

In the process of data sharding, rebalancing cross-data shards becomes quite challenging as cross-shard queries become costly. You must opt for professional software expert help in case you face these challenges in pre-planning shard keys.

Cost-effective tip: Wise pre-planning of shard keys and NewSQL database for native sharding.

8. Consistency or Availability

Roping in the top database scalability solutions for handling high traffic may include high availability, high data consistency, high response timing, etc. In terms of database scalability, it may not guarantee consistency, availability, and partition tolerance simultaneously. So basically it's consistency vs. availability; you can't have both!

According to the CAP theorem, you either choose CP (consistency & partition tolerance) or AP (availability & partition tolerance). Meaning, highly consistent databases often sacrifice high availability for system performance and vice versa. Based on your business needs, you may choose the better option using the CAP theorem.

9. Fast databases also undergo latency issues

Three factors impact system performance significantly

  • network latency,

  • storage performance, and

  • caching mechanisms

Though many database service providers claim to offer fast and millisecond-quick query responses, the shady truth adds something more. Even the fastest of databases sometimes experience response delays due to many reasons, like cache issues, disk I/O, and network hops.

Time-saving tip: You must utilize in-memory databases like Redis etc. for reducing latency.

10.  Cloud databases can cost a mountain

Yes, that! Cloud databases promise finite business scalability and data management, but nothing comes without a price. Its hidden costs can easily become mountainous if not pre-planned or managed. There are various factors, like

  • data storage

  • data backup

  • cross-region replication, and

  • Bandwidth fees can significantly increase the costs associated with adopting a cloud database for your business. 

However, these kinds of issues will occur only when regular data monitoring and query optimization do not occur.

Cost-effective solution: You may use reserved instances to cut costs.

We Make Understanding Database Scalability Easier!

At Acquaint Softtech, it's our prime goal to assist our clients with absolute transparency, ensuring 360° productivity. Our exclusive SaaS product engineering services include high-end scalability solutions that you will get nowhere else!

In the Nutshell

Indeed, understanding database scalability factors can help you save a significant amount of money on any software product. Additionally, it can alleviate numerous performance bottlenecks and migration complexities. 

It's just that you need to look for a dedicated software product engineering company that does not claim business scalability blindly. You must choose a service partner based on real-world needs that suit your business best.

For any service provider, it requires very strategic planning for intelligent database scaling. Optimizing data rightfully by utilizing the right architecture will ensure cost-effective business growth. After all, you would rather not pause your product scaling process due to slow performance, downtime, and cost increments.

.

Mukesh Ram

Founder and CEO, Acquaint Softtech

I love to make a difference. Thus, I started Acquaint Softtech with the vision of making developers easily accessible and affordable to all. Me and my beloved team have been fulfilling this vision for over 15 years now and will continue to get even bigger and better.

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