Growing Your Cache: From Small to Massive

Your cache is growing popular, and one server isn't enough anymore. Sound familiar? It's exactly like scaling a database!

Scaling Strategy 1: Vertical Scaling (Make it Bigger)

Scaling Strategy 2: Read Replicas (Clone for Reads)

Perfect for: High-read applications (like news websites)

Scaling Strategy 3: Sharding (Divide and Conquer)

How API Knows Where to Go:

• Hash the user ID
• Route to correct cache server
• Each server handles its slice

Real Example:

• Instagram user profiles
• Shard by username first letter
• Each cache server handles specific users

Key Insight: Cache scaling follows database patterns because cache IS a database - just a faster, temporary one!