A shared-nothing architecture (SN) is a
distributed computing
Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different networked computers.
The components of a distributed system commu ...
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...
in which each update request is satisfied by a single node (processor/memory/storage unit) in a
computer cluster
A computer cluster is a set of computers that work together so that they can be viewed as a single system. Unlike grid computers, computer clusters have each node set to perform the same task, controlled and scheduled by software. The newes ...
. The intent is to eliminate contention among nodes. Nodes do not share (independently access) the same memory or storage.
One alternative architecture is shared everything, in which requests are satisfied by arbitrary combinations of nodes. This may introduce contention, as multiple nodes may seek to update the same data at the same time. It also contrasts with
shared-disk and
shared-memory architectures.
SN eliminates
single points of failure, allowing the overall system to continue operating despite failures in individual nodes and allowing individual nodes to upgrade hardware or software without a system-wide shutdown.
A SN system can scale simply by adding nodes, since no central resource bottlenecks the system. In databases, a term for the part of a database on a single node is a ''
shard''. A SN system typically partitions its data among many nodes. A refinement is to replicate commonly used but infrequently modified data across many nodes, allowing more requests to be resolved on a single node.
History
Michael Stonebraker at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
used the term in a 1986 database paper.
Teradata delivered the first SN database system in 1983.
Tandem Computers NonStop systems, a shared-nothing implementation of hardware and software was released to market in 1976. Tandem Computers later released
NonStop SQL, a shared-nothing relational database, in 1984.
Applications
Shared-nothing is popular for
web development.
Shared-nothing architectures are prevalent for
data warehousing
In computing, a data warehouse (DW or DWH), also known as an enterprise data warehouse (EDW), is a system used for Business intelligence, reporting and data analysis and is a core component of business intelligence. Data warehouses are central Re ...
applications, although requests that require data from multiple nodes can dramatically reduce throughput.
See also
References
{{Reflist
Data partitioning
Distributed computing architecture