<aside> 👉 Separate services, such as printing or file servers, over multiple servers or computers

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• Separate the processing and the data
• Application servers have smaller storage requirements whereas databases require large, fast file storage, so a custom approach can be used (hence the separation)

Distributed databases

• Can be split over multiple servers, with each database providing part of the overall system
• All-or-nothing approach: either all databases do the update, or none of them do (avoids issues with data integrity)

✅  Advantages

• Resilience - if one database goes down, other areas of the organisation can keep working
• Security - access to entire databases can be limited
• Scaling - new databases can be added, easily allowing for growth
• Performance - the load on a single database will be reduced, as it is only there to provide part of the overall system