This article will help you understand why scalability is important, what application scalability is, and the key components to consider when building scalable web applications for your startup. Show
Why Is Scalability Important?In today’s world, users expect a lightning-fast load time, high availability 24/7, and minimal disruptions to the user experience, no matter how many other people are trying to access your web app. If your application isn’t designed properly, and cannot handle the increase in users and workload, then people will inevitably abandon your app for more scalable apps offering a better user experience. Scalability is an essential component of software because:
Too often, companies typically focus more on features and less on scalability. Scalability is however essential to the life of any web application, or it will simply fail to perform. Prioritizing it from the start leads to lower maintenance costs, better user experience, and higher agility. What is Application Scalability?Scalability describes a system’s elasticity. Application scalability is the ability of an application to handle a growing number of users and load, without compromising on performance and causing disruptions to user experience. To put it another way, scalability reflects the ability of the software to grow or change with the user’s demands. The scalability of an application can be measured by the number of requests it can effectively support simultaneously. It’s however a long-time process that impacts almost every single item in your stack, including both hardware and software sides of the system. So scaling these resources can include any combination of adjustments to network bandwidth, CPU and physical memory requirements, and hard disk adjustments. Meaning your application needs to be correctly configured, where the right software protocols and hardware are aligned to meet a high number of requests per minute (RPM). Building with scalability in mind will help you improve your ability to serve customer requests under heavy load, as well as reduce downtime due to server crashes. All in all, the goal of scalability is to ensure that your user experience remains constant regardless of the number of people who use your app. When talking about scalability in cloud computing, you will often hear about two main ways of scaling: Horizontal or Vertical. So what is it, and what is the difference? Horizontal Scaling Vs Vertical ScalingHorizontal scaling (also described as “scaling out”) and Vertical Scaling (also described as “scaling up)” are pretty similar because they both involve adding computing resources to your infrastructure. But there are distinct differences between the two in terms of implementation and performance. Credit - BitPanda
So the main difference to keep in mind is that Horizontal scaling adds more machine resources to your existing machine infrastructure. In contrast, Vertical scaling adds power to your current machine infrastructure by increasing power from CPU or RAM to existing machines. Whether it’s Horizontal or Vertical scaling, this decision will largely be influenced by the nature of the application and the expected increase in server load and other similar variables. 7 Things to Consider to Build Scalable Web ApplicationsNow that you understand what application scalability is and why it is essential let’s review the steps to build scalable web applications. 1. Assess the need for scaling and managing expectationsDon’t try to improve scalability when you don’t need to. Scaling could be costly. Make sure that your expectations of scaling justify the expenses (and not because everyone is talking about scalability). Here are a few things that can help you decide:
2. Use metrics to define your scalability challengeSuppose now your web app needs to be scaled. You need to decide what scalability issues you need to focus on. This can be done by using these four scalability metrics:
3. Choose the tools to monitor the application scalabilityLet’s go forward on this point. Now that you have decided on the metrics to focus on, you need app-monitoring tools to track related metrics. Prominent PaaS (like Heroku) and IaaS (like AWS) solutions offer good application monitoring solutions (APM), which makes the task easier. For example, Elastic Beanstalk (AWS) has its ‘own inbuilt monitoring solution and Heroku uses its own New Relic add-on for monitoring. We can also mention good AMP market solutions such as Datadog AMP (among our proud investors), New Relic AMP, AppDynamics, etc. 4. Use the suitable infrastructure options for scalabilitySuppose you are a startup building a web app. Using a PaaS (like Heroku) or an IaaS (like AWS) is recommended because Cloud services take care of many aspects of web app development and maintenance. These aspects include the infrastructure and storage, servers, networking, databases, middleware, and runtime environment. PaaS and IaaS can make scaling easier since they offer auto-scaling, along with reliability and availability of SLAs. (Read more about Heroku vs AWS: What to choose as a startup?) 5. Pick the right software architecture pattern for scalabilityProbably one of the most important parts of application scalability. The scalable architecture enables web applications to adapt according to the user demand and offer the best performance. Therefore, architecture issues can significantly impact scalability. Here are two main architecture patterns that we will consider here for scalability: Monolithic Architecture and Microservices Architecture.
6. Choose the correct database to scaleWhen talking about scaling, the database is a significant point to focus on after you have addressed the infrastructure and architecture aspects. The type of database you choose will depend on the data types you need to store, meaning relational (such as MySQL or PostgreSQL) or unstructured (NoSQL database, like MongoDB). Whether you opt for relational or unstructured databases, it should be easy to integrate into your app. 7. Choosing the proper framework for scalabilityFrameworks could significantly affect the application scalability, so its choice affects the performance of an app with the increase of features. Depending on your choice of the development language, you have quite a few options. For example, frameworks like Django and Ruby on Rails are great options for building scalable web applications, but if you compare Ruby on Rails with Node.Js, Node.Js offers a great capacity to run complex projects asynchronous queries. You could find other frameworks such as Angular JS, React.js, Laravel, etc. But keep in mind that the success of your application scalability will depend on how well you choose the infrastructure and architecture pattern to support a large scale. [This is probably one of the most important parts, and it requires special attention. We plan to publish an article dedicated to it. Stay tuned!] Other factors to consider when building scalable web apps
ConclusionAs you can see, there are many things and challenges to consider when building scalable applications. But scalability is essential if you want your startup to succeed and develop a successful product that meets growing market demands. That’s why your applications should be developed with scalability in mind. There are a few other challenges involved in building such apps for a startup, including spending months to configure and manage infrastructure, build a robust deployment pipeline and maintain it, or the cost of hiring a team that has extensive experience in custom web development. How to easily scale your application with QoveryQovery is a revolutionary way to deploy and scale your app, making it easier for developers to interact with the AWS suite. Essentially, it is a middle layer between your repository and your AWS infrastructure. All you have to do is connect Qovery to your AWS account and link it to your repository. Push your code, and Qovery will do the rest. The beauty of Qovery is in its simplicity. A full deployment suite may require months of work from DevOps engineers to be built on top of AWS, but with Qovery, all of this is handled in just fifteen minutes. The simplest way to deploy your apps on AWS | QoveryWhat does Qovery do?
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