A high-traffic website expects a major upswing in orders during a seasonal sale. The team is debating whether to upgrade a single environment with more resources or adopt a broader infrastructure approach. Which technique is commonly favored for handling large spikes, and why does it help sustain reliable operations?
Consolidate services onto a robust platform, securing a singular source for resource allocation
Increase processing units and memory on the existing environment to accommodate more concurrent sessions
Utilize a group of similarly configured components, managed by a balancing mechanism to share incoming traffic
Rely on one primary node for major tasks, and attach supplementary instances for lower-priority activities
Distributing traffic across a pool of similarly configured systems, governed by a load balancer, is a widely adopted strategy for high-demand, high-availability environments. This method—often described as horizontal scaling—ensures incoming traffic is evenly distributed, minimizing the chance of overloading any single node and improving resilience. Unlike vertical scaling (adding more resources to a single system), this technique avoids performance bottlenecks and introduces redundancy. Systems that consolidate functions into a monolithic or single environment may offer simplified management but falter when demand spikes abruptly. Horizontal scaling combined with automated load balancing delivers both reliability and consistency under pressure, which is vital for scenarios like seasonal traffic surges.
Ask Bash
Bash is our AI bot, trained to help you pass your exam. AI Generated Content may display inaccurate information, always double-check anything important.
What is horizontal scaling?
Open an interactive chat with Bash
What does a load balancer do?
Open an interactive chat with Bash
How does horizontal scaling differ from vertical scaling?