Chapter 9. Scaling Your Database with PL/Proxy

If you have followed the advice in the previous chapters for doing all your database access through functions, you are in a great position to scale your database by "horizontally" distributing the data over multiple servers. Horizontal distribution means that you keep just a portion of a table on each "partition" database, and that you have a method to automatically access the right database when accessing the data.

We will gently introduce the concepts leading to the PL/Proxy partitioning language, and then delve into the syntax and proper usage of the language itself. Let's start with writing a scalable application from scratch. First, we will write it to be as highly performing as possible on one server. Then, we will scale it by spreading it out on several servers. We will first get this implemented in PL/Pythonu and then as samples done in the theme special language for this chapter—PL/Proxy.

Note

This approach is worth taking only if you...