Shard a large database across multiple servers to handle more data and traffic without replacing your existing database.
Split read and write operations across different database instances to improve performance and reduce load on your primary database.
Encrypt sensitive columns and mask personally identifiable information transparently without changing application code.
Query data across multiple heterogeneous databases as if they were a single unified database using SQL federation.
Requires Java build, multiple database instances, and understanding of ShardingSphere's YAML configuration for sharding rules.
Apache ShardingSphere is middleware that sits between an application and one or more databases and makes a collection of separate databases look and behave like a single, more capable one. The project frames this as Database Plus: rather than build a brand-new database, ShardingSphere adds a standardised enhancement layer on top of existing ones so an application can talk to them through a unified interface and get extra capabilities for free. The README organises what it does around three pillars. Connect means it speaks common database protocols and SQL dialects and adapts to different storage formats, so applications can reach multi-database setups through one consistent access path. Enhance is the value added on top: data sharding (splitting one logical table across many physical databases), read/write splitting, SQL federation across sources, encryption, data masking, auditing, rate limiting and circuit breakers, and observability through monitoring and tracing. Pluggable refers to the architecture itself, a micro-kernel design with three pluggable layers, so teams can swap or extend components instead of taking an all-or-nothing package. ShardingSphere offers two access points that can be used separately or together. ShardingSphere-JDBC is a lightweight Java library that ships as a JAR, plugs into an application's JDBC driver path, and is compatible with common Java ORM frameworks such as MyBatis, JPA, and Hibernate. ShardingSphere-Proxy is a standalone service the application connects to instead of the database directly. The project is written in Java and became an Apache Top-Level Project on April 16, 2020. The full README is longer than what was provided.
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