Database sharding and Rails

Question

What\'s the best way to deal with a sharded database in Rails? Should the sharding be handled at the application layer, the active record layer, the database driver layer, a pr

Answer 1

Connecting Rails to multiple databases is not a big deal- you simply have an ActiveRecord subclass for each shard that overrides the connection property. That makes it pretty simple if you need to make cross-shard calls. You then just have to write a little code when you need to make calls between the shards.

I don't like Hank's idea of splitting the rails instances, because it seems challenging to call the code between the instances unless you have a big shared library.

Also you should look at doing something like Masochism before you start sharding.