Property:Scalability
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Scalability | Version: | 1.0 | |||
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Document type: | Quality Attribute | Owner: |
The scalability of a facility, denoted as a single string, determines how easy or difficult it will be to alter its capacity. There are two strategies available to promote scalability, namely facilitating the possibility of either internal or external scaling.
- Internal scalability is achieved by the expandability (or reduction) of individual components making up the solution (Scaling Up or Down); an example would be the addition of extra RAM in a server.
- External scalability is achieved by using more (or less) components in parallel (Scaling Out or In); an example would be the addition of extra web servers behind a load balancer.
When determining the scalability of a solution, it is advisable to devote extra attention to interfaces and aggregation points, because this is where most bottlenecks and integration issues will occur.
Defined values for Scalability:
ordinal | value | meaning |
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0 | NS | no scalability specified |
1 | fixed | Capacity cannot be scaled |
10 | up | Capacity can be Scaled Up |
15 | up and down | Capacity can be scaled both up and down |
20 | out | Capacity can be scaled outward only. |
25 | out and back | Capacity can be scaled out, but also back |
30 | up and out | Capacity can be scaled both upward and outward |
40 | up, down, out and back | Capacity can be scaled up, down, in and out |