In this chapter, you learned the basic terms, concepts, and components of creating a sharded cluster and using the sharding technique in MongoDB. First, we discussed the different methods of scaling a database system, vertical and horizontal scaling. Then, we introduced the sharding method, which is the horizontal scaling solution for MongoDB.

Also, you learned about the different parts and components of sharding, shards, query routers, and configuration servers. Next, you learned one of the important parts of the sharding procedure, the shard key. Then, all the techniques available to define a shard key were introduced and in the next section, we talked about performance difference between methods. Furthermore, we discussed splitting and balancing processes, which help with maintenance and retention of the balance of data size and chunks in the shards.

In the next chapter, we will configure and establish a sharded cluster from scratch using terms and concepts that we have learned...