That 'point' is where a world of troubles begin. That point is where the number of database updates per second exceeds the capability of your hardware platform.
At this point, like massive sites such as YouTube, flickr, or facebook, you are faced with the option of database sharding - splitting your data up by value (ie. Users A-K on this server and L-Z on that server).
You can no longer treat the database as a black box which does all the magic of multi-table joins. Rails also does not provide any tools to help accomplish sharding out of the box.
That 'point' is where a world of troubles begin. That point is where the number of database updates per second exceeds the capability of your hardware platform.
At this point, like massive sites such as YouTube, flickr, or facebook, you are faced with the option of database sharding - splitting your data up by value (ie. Users A-K on this server and L-Z on that server).
You can no longer treat the database as a black box which does all the magic of multi-table joins. Rails also does not provide any tools to help accomplish sharding out of the box.