I’ve been working with distributed systems, platforms, and databases for the last seven years. Back in 2015, many architects began using distributed databases to scale beyond the boundaries of a single machine or server. They selected such a database for its horizontal scalability, even if its performance remained comparable to a conventional single-server database.
Now, with the rise of cloud-native applications and serverless architecture, distributed databases need to do more than provide horizontal scalability. Architects require databases that can stay available during major cloud region outages, enable hybrid cloud deployments, and serve data close to customers and end users. This is where geo-distributed databases come into play.