This chapter shows you how to build MySQL-based applications that can grow very large while remaining fast, efficient, and economical.

Which scalability advice is relevant to applications that can fit on a single server or a handful of servers? Most people will never maintain systems at an extremely large scale, and the tactics used at very large and popular companies shouldn’t always be emulated. We’ll try to cover a range of strategies in this chapter. We’ve built or helped build many applications, ranging from those that use a single server or a handful of servers to those that use thousands. Choosing the appropriate strategy for your application is often the key to saving money and time that can be invested elsewhere.