Independent scaling means separation of storage and computing resources for data management. This approach has met with early success in cloud environments. Several data and analytics leaders are now thinking of using the cloud. Embracing this approach will help them in devising a successful cloud strategy.
Gartner says that by 2019, separation of storage and computing resources designed for cloud DBMS architectures will be the dominant database platform as a service (dbPaaS) model. In this blog post, we will understand what independent scaling is and discuss its advantages.
Following are the five benefits of using decoupling cloud’s storage and computing resources:
1. Flexible Pricing Model
Using independent scaling, computing resources can be turned off when they are not needed. Also, less frequently used data can be moved to less expensive storage tiers. This provides you with greater flexibility in terms of pricing model.
2. Support Multiple Services
Use of the storage tier as a data persistence layer provides support to multiple services. It also provides with multi-node support for operational and analytic workloads through appropriate segmentation of computing resources. These computing resources are attached to common or replicated storage tiers.
3. Scalability
Independent scaling facilitates scaling of computing resources for operational use cases in response to seasonal or other surges in demand.
4. Cost Optimization
An organization can achieve cost optimization through appropriate sizing of environments and avoidance of over provisioning for performance reasons.
5. Replicated Geo-Clusters
Independent scaling provides resilient and replicated geo-clusters (environments spanning geographic regions) that support cloud arbitrage and brokering opportunities for cost optimization, where workloads are run wherever computing capacity is least expensive at a given point in time.
Separation of storage and computing resources or independent scaling has opened up new possibilities in distributed architectures that are well-suited to cloud infrastructure. Data and analytics leaders must expect independent scaling to become pervasive in cloud environments. They must focus on evaluating new data management technologies that can be enabled by this separation. Also, they must refocus their efforts on planning a migration strategy before committing to a CSP. This will let them understand beforehand, the risks and complexities of leaving that provider.
Thus by keeping a correct approach, you can successfully benefit with independent scaling.
