What is distributed SQL?
Distributed SQL is the ability to query a single logical relational database across multiple servers (clusters) with standard SQL syntax. Distributed SQL databases have strong consistency across clusters, data centers, or other geographic/availability zones. Distributed SQL databases are important because they are capable of scaling out quickly by adding additional cluster nodes and can therefore handle very large datasets.
Distributed SQL is suited to use cases where dramatic surges and troughs of activity are common, such as ecommerce sites that experience large surges of activity during holidays, or betting sites that experience an avalanche of activity during large sporting events.
Distributed SQL databases provide ample headroom and enough capacity to handle such sudden high demand at optimal operating cost, scaling infrastructure back down after the big game or holiday. Other uses for distributed SQL include streaming media that requires large amounts of data to customize offerings for users. The flexibility offered by distributed SQL can help eliminate downtime and lead to cost savings when users can quickly scale up or down, depending on their needs.