# What is a distributed database and how do they work?

DevFeed: [What is a distributed database and how do they work?](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/what-is-a-distributed-database-and-how-do-they-work-23824.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://cockroachlabs.com/blog/what-is-a-distributed-database>)

Author: Charlie Custer

Published: 2023-10-09T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Cockroach Labs](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/cockroach-labs.md>)

Topics: [Databases](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/databases.md>), [Architecture & Design](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/architecture-design.md>), [Resilience](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/resilience.md>), [Cloud](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cloud.md>), [Microservice](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/microservice.md>)

Tags: [architecture](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/architecture.md>), [cloud](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cloud.md>), [database](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/database.md>), [distributed](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/distributed.md>), [microservices](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/microservices.md>), [relational-databases](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/relational-databases.md>), [resilience](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/resilience.md>), [scale](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/scale.md>)

## AI overview

This article explains what distributed databases are, how they run data across multiple interconnected computers or nodes, and why they are used. It describes their resilience during instance outages and their suitability for scaling cloud applications and mission-critical workloads.

## Source excerpt

The cloud is, by definition, a distributed system. Distributed application architecture is mainstream in the world of software -- you wouldn't build any other way. For more than a decade, though, the database has lagged behind. The architecture of traditional relational databases frequently conflicts with the architectural needs of modern cloud applications: horizontal scale, elasticity, and microservices.