Understanding the Essential Considerations of Network Scalability

Network scalability is a very important topic. If the Internet is going to continue to support this rapidly growing number of users, it must be easy to increase resource availability.

What is network scalability?

Scalability can be defined as a network's ability to react to a growing demand for resources and bandwidth requirements and adapt without losing quality. It can also be defined as the ability to handle continuous growth without undue challenges or to be prepared to become larger without the loss of quality in the services offered.

The concept of scalability is a little perplexing and mystifying, partly because it is challenging to define the nuanced requirements for scalability in relevant dimensions in which it is believed to be important. It is a highly important issue in electronic systems, databases, routers and networks.

A number of new solutions are helping improve network scalability, such as SD-WAN. SD-WAN is ideal for many networks, because it provides both the security and scalability of PKI. It comes with enterprise network scale segmentation and a number of other features that improve the performance of network scalability options. 

Dimensions of network scalability

It is important to be aware of the different dimensions of network scalability. Some of the most important are listed below.

Load scalability

Networks can use distributed systems to simplify the process of scaling its resources to accommodate loads as they become lighter or heavier.

Geographic scalability

Sometimes networks have to cater to users in certain regions. It is important to make sure that servers and other resources in those areas can handle the load of enough people in that area.

Types of network scalability

A computer system has the ability to change its size or configuration to adapt to changing circumstances. Let's define the types of scalability that exist.

Vertical scalability

A system scales vertically or upward, when adding more resources to a particular node in the system improves the system as a whole.

It means growing the hardware of one of the nodes, increasing the existing form of hardware by a more powerful one, such as hard disk, memory or processor. However, it can also be the complete migration of the hardware by a more powerful one. The effort of this growth is minimal, since it consists of backing up and migrating the systems to the new hardware.

The ideal is to combine vertical scaling with horizontal scaling and thus obtain better results.

Horizontal scalability

A system scales horizontally if its performance improves by adding more nodes to it. It is based on maintaining the cost of development and application adapting at all times to its continuous growth, but it is a more complex system to implement and manage. It is usually made up of a grouping of equipment that supports the complete functionality. In a horizontal scalability, equipment is added to give more power to the network.

The total processing power is the sum of the physical speed of each computer transferred by the partitioning of applications and data spread across the nodes.

It is advisable to perform an analysis of user activity in order to adjust the system's performance. Network scalability is a critical factor in the growth of users. It is much easier to design a system with a constant number of users than to design a system with a growing and variable number of users.

For example, in an online store where we will try to implement a flexible software that can adjust to the requirements in high peaks of demand and that provides excellent management in terms of performance and optimization.

Today's highly scalable Internet architecture cannot always keep pace with the demand for new users. There is a growing need for modernized protocols and a new set of structures to meet the accelerated pace at which Internet services and applications are being added.

Hierarchal networks

It is common knowledge that the Internet is expanding at breakneck speed without seriously affecting the performance of individual users. 

The large number of interconnected public and private networks are organized through a hierarchical layered structure for addressing, naming and connectivity services. Across every hierarchal level or layer, individual network admins must maintain peer-to-peer relationships with other operators at the same level. As a result, network traffic destined for regional and local services does not need to cross to a central point for distributing resources. Most common functions can be duplicated independent of geography, thus keeping out traffic from higher-level networks.

While there is no universal Internet regulatory body, the operators of many of the individual networks that provide connectivity to the Internet have started cooperating to follow generally accepted computing standards and protocols.

In the next few years, it is predicted that there will be 63 million new devices connecting per second to enterprise networks. This exponential growth of mobile users, IoT devices, cloud applications and cyber threats places new demands on networks, which must be upgraded and optimized to scale and deliver the necessary performance.

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