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Definition of Sharding
Generally, sharding is the database partitioning technique. And blockchain networks often use it to achieve scalability ( that allows the networks to process an increased number of transactions simultaneously). And the smaller partitions in the blockchain network are called shards. Also, while each shard contains its own data, none of them depends on the other ones.
And the primary benefit of sharding is that the blockchain needs to store and process transactional information through one shard node only. Otherwise, the data can take gone through all the nodes of a network. It can result in the network becoming slower and slower with every new participant. Also, sharding resolves this issue by breaking the single chain up into multiple concurrent chains.
Also, the sharding architecture is all about creating a feasible way to accomplish horizontal partitioning of the database. Partitions work as rows where each row categorize according to the distinct purposes it serves. Also for instance, one of the shards can get allocated for keeping the records of some transactions.
And let’s try to understand this with the help of a real-life example. And let’s suppose the blockchain use to store records relating to rental real estate transactions. The entire transaction can distribute among multiple shards. One shard can correspond to the name of the customer. Another bit may correspond to the digital keys that a renter would receive upon paying the rent. And it’s important to remember that sharding architecture retains the original properties of the decentralized ledger. Each shard design in such a way that it can share among other bits.
How Zilliqa Leverages Sharding?
Zilliqa is the brainchild of several academics, entrepreneurs, and engineers. Its mixed team aimed at equipping developers and enterprises with a scalable and secure platform suitable for building decentralized applications.
And the team launched its main net in January 2019. Zilliqa became the first-ever blockchain platform to leverage it as the solution to scale up. And it’s a unique way of using it for enabling the blockchain’s linear growth.
Also, the sharded architecture of Zilliqa has three essential features: its scalable, secure, and decentralized.
1. Security
It’s important to note that improving scalability did not come at the cost of security existence cooperated. And the network uses time-tested and verified security mechanisms and the clever contract language named Scilla: Also, it addresses many challenges, vulnerabilities, and loopholes that other innovative contract languages fix not.
2. Decentralization
Despite its existence base on shards, Zilliqa remains decentralized. It did not need the coordinator to process all the transactions.
And Zilliqa has some other qualities to offer its users as well. Did we know that the mining process of Zilliqa coins is eco-friendly and sustainable? And it takes just the minute out of every 2–3 hours to mine these coins. Also, Zilliqa compatible with a wide range of applications, wallets, and DApps.
3. Scalability
As we already know, Zilliqa divides the blockchain network into multiple parts. And each of these groups processes transactions concurrently. If six shards (each with 600 nodes) work simultaneously, the total number of transactions processed per second would be 2828.
Since Zilliqa’s operational capacity is much greater than Bitcoin or Ethereum, the transaction fees are bound to come down within this system.