Sharding is a hot topic for many blockchain projects.
There are many questions around this subject, and all connected with scalability.
One of the biggest project and developers working on sharding is Ethereum.
Sharding is still in test phase in many projects.
One alternative for Sharding is off-chain transactions.
What is Sharding?
Sharding is one of the scaling strategies for any apps. Within the strategy, the information from the general database is divided into blocks and spread to various servers, which are called shards. The process of using this strategy is called sharding. Sometimes you can meet the term “partitioning” – this is a part of sharding. So is called the process of the database dividing before bringing to the separate servers.
The data sharding is divided into vertical and horizontal. It is connected with the fact that the database presented a table initially. If you divide the table into vertical columns (the title and all data below), then it is the vertical sharding. If you divide the table into lines (the titles of all columns and the table parts under it), it is the horizontal sharding. Anyway, then the table parts (i.e. the databases) go to different servers.
https://en.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/ShardingDifficulties of the blockchain sharding introduction
There is no mechanism that can track which node process the transaction. A safe and effective mechanism is necessary, which will quickly and safely work in the blockchain. There is no developed trust algorithm between the nodes to let them trust each other. In the cryptocurrency blockchain, the nodes do not have the right to simply trust each other – they must come to the independent consensus. A confirmation of the fact that both nodes finished the processing process is also needed. The sharding can be effectively implemented in the blockchains with the Proof-of-stake algorithm (full or partial), and now the scalability problem is faced mostly by the cryptocurrencies with the Proof-of-work algorithm.
What is sharding? (1 minute video):
https://youtu.be/WI6pE5nFeFIwww.harmony.oneList of know projects that are working on Sharding- Ethereum
- Ziliqa
- Harmony
- Elrond
- Fleta
- Quarkchain
- Multivac
- Algorand
- Kadena
- Polkadot
- Apollo