What Is Sharding and How Does It Work?

Blockchain technology has introduced unprecedented potential in decentralization, transparency, and security. But it faces a significant challenge: scalability. Scalability is one point of the “blockchain trilemma,” which also includes security and decentralization. Achieving all three simultaneously is a persisting issue in the blockchain realm. This is where strategic solutions like “sharding” come into play.

What Is Sharding?

Sharding is a concept borrowed from traditional database management. It refers to the process of splitting a larger database into smaller, more manageable parts, called shards. Its application in blockchain aims to improve scalability, whilst maintaining the principle of decentralization. In essence, sharding occurs when a blockchain network is divided into smaller parts known as shards, each capable of parallelly processing transactions and smart contracts.

How Does Sharding Work?

Understanding how sharding is executed within a blockchain network requires a comprehension of how blockchain data is usually stored and processed. There are various ways data can be processed. We are going to look into sequential and parallel processing.

Typically, each blockchain node is responsible for handling all of the transaction volume within the network. This type of data processing is commonly referred to as sequential processing. This implies that every node must maintain and store all critical information, such as account balances and transaction history. In essence, each node must process all network operations, data, and transactions.

Though such a model bolsters the security of the blockchain by recording every transaction across all nodes, it dramatically slows down the processing of data. This is where parallel processing of data comes into play as it allows for multiple operations to be executed concurrently.

Sharding can be a potent solution to this predicament as it divides or ‘partitions’ the transactional workload across the blockchain network. This means that not all nodes need to manage or process the entirety of the blockchain’s load.

Instead, sharding segregates the workload through horizontal partitioning. In this process, the data is divided into horizontal subsets, with each shard acting as an independent database capable of processing transactions separately from the others. 

Horizontal vs. vertical partitioning

Horizontal partitioning and vertical partitioning are two key approaches to database scaling. While both are designed to manage large data sets more effectively, they work in fundamentally different ways. Sharding is a common method of implementing horizontal partitioning.

In horizontal partitioning, the data is divided into rows and spread across different nodes (or databases), each containing a subset of the data. Each row in a table is a unique entity, so separating them doesn’t lead to any loss of data integrity. A prominent example of horizontal partitioning in use is in the distribution of blockchain networks, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin.

In vertical partitioning, the data is divided into columns, rather than rows. Each partition in vertical partitioning contains a subset of data for each entity, or the entire dataset, but only for a certain set of attributes. For instance, consider a customer table with columns like Name, Status, Description, and Photo. In a vertical partitioning scenario, the ‘Name’ and ‘Status’ might be kept in one table, and ‘Description’ and ‘Photo’ in another.

Why is horizontal partitioning preferred?

Horizontal partitioning is generally favored over vertical partitioning in blockchain networks for three key reasons: scalability, decentralization, and security.

Scalability: Sharding provides a solution by breaking the data into smaller, more manageable ‘shards’. Each shard can operate independently, enabling more transactions to be processed simultaneously, improving network speed and efficiency. Whereas with vertical partitioning, distributing the columns across different databases might require more complexity in retrieving a complete transaction or block information and could limit the scalability.

Decentralization: In keeping with the core ethos of blockchain, horizontal partitioning supports decentralization. When nodes only have to process a portion of the total data (a shard), it allows for more nodes to participate in the network since the computational and storage burdens are reduced. Vertical partitioning, comparatively, would restrict this as each node would need access to all partitions (all columns of data) to understand and verify the complete block data.

Security and Data Integrity: Horizontal partitioning maintains data integrity because each shard (or partition) contains complete transaction data, ensuring that each node has a full, accurate copy of its portion of the blockchain. In vertical partitioning, you’d essentially be splitting up a block’s data across different nodes, making it challenging to ensure data integrity and security, a paramount aspect of blockchain networks.

What Are the Benefits of Sharding?

Let’s delve into the potential benefits that sharding brings to blockchain technology:

Increased Transaction Speed: Sharding facilitates parallel processing of transactions. Instead of processing transactions one by one in a sequential manner, sharding allows transactions to be processed simultaneously but on different shards. Each shard works independently, thereby increasing transaction speed significantly. This not only expedites transaction speed, but it also means that the whole network can handle more users, promoting mass adoption.

An example of an existing blockchain network using shards to address scalability is Ziliqa. Ziliqa’s sharding mechanism allows it to achieve thousands of transactions per second.

Minimized Processing and Storage Costs: The conventional blockchain design obliges every node to store all transactions, intensifying the demands on hardware as the blockchain grows. But with sharding, each node is responsible for processing and storing just a fraction of the entire network’s data—this decreases the resources necessary for a node to participate in the network.

As such, more participants can join as validators, enhancing network decentralization without incurring prohibitive costs. It mitigates problems where only entities with high-end, expensive computing resources could realistically participate in the process, thus maintaining the democratized nature of blockchain networks.

Improved Network Performance: Sharding can help to improve overall network performance and capacity. In the traditional blockchains, as more nodes participate in the network, the performance paradoxically decreases due to the need for increased data communication and synchronization between nodes.

However, sharding transforms this scenario. Since each shard works separately and concurrently, the system can process more transactions and computations. When a new node joins, it can be added to a shard instead of the entire network, thus enhancing the network’s capacity to scale. Efficiency is improved, leading to smoother transactions and a better user experience.

Remember, future advancements and improvements in sharding technology may create other advantages, or strengthen these existing ones, enhancing the blockchain ecosystem continually.

What Are the Limitations of Sharding?

While sharding offers several potential benefits that could help blockchain networks become more efficient, the process also introduces a unique set of challenges. Some potential vulnerabilities introduced by sharding include: 

Single Shard Takeover Attacks: In a sharding environment, the computational power to take over a single shard is dramatically less than the power required to take over the entire network. This makes these individual shards more vulnerable to a “one-percent attack” or “shard takeover” – whereby an attacker with a small amount of resources compared to the whole network can potentially take over an individual shard.

Cross-shard Transactions: Transactions happening across different shards (cross-shard) present a unique challenge. Cross-shard transactions are complex and could potentially lead to double-spending if not carefully managed. If one shard doesn’t accurately track the state of the other shard during a transaction, users may exploit this to “double spend”.

Data Availability Problems: Sharding makes maintaining the entire network state an intricate effort. If certain shards aren’t available when required (because the nodes maintaining those shards are offline), it could lead to data availability issues, disrupting the entire network.

Network Security: Sharding requires the implementation of a robust protocol that balances the load between shards. If not correctly done, this could lead to uneven distribution of data or imbalance of resources, resulting in potential network instability.

Node Synchronization: Node synchronization can cause network delays due to the time it takes to share and update information across different nodes. Furthermore, if a node with slower processing capabilities or network connection lags behind, it could slow down the entire synchronization process, reducing the overall performance of the blockchain network.

Is Sharding Implemented on Ethereum?

Ethereum has plans to implement sharding as part of their Ethereum 2.0 upgrade. Ethereum 2.0, also known as Eth2 or Serenity, is an upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain that aims to enhance the speed, efficiency, and scalability of the network, allowing it to process more transactions and ease congestion.

As of now, the upgrade is being implemented in phases, with the final phase (Phase 2) including the full implementation of sharding. Ethereum developers hope that these enhancements will address some of the current challenges associated with scalability and transaction cost that the network is facing.

However, it’s important to note that implementing sharding comes with its own set of challenges, particularly in maintaining the security and decentralization of the network. Therefore, Ethereum developers are putting careful thought and extensive testing into this transition to ensure the upgrade’s success when fully implemented.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, sharding represents a noteworthy advance towards solving the blockchain trilemma. While it introduces new complexities and possible drawbacks, its potential for increasing scalability without compromising decentralization holds immense promise for the future of blockchain networks.

It’s no wonder that various blockchains are exploring sharding as a potential solution. Ethereum is integrating sharding as part of the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade to address scalability issues. This implementation is expected to take place through The Cancun upgrade, a critical component of the overall enhancement plan. Nevertheless, like any other evolving technology, success will depend on ongoing research, development, and rigorous testing of sharding implementations.