## Overview

<!-- markdownlint-disable MD032 -->
> [!NOTE]
> This lab only supports Chrome browser.

TiDB uses a distributed architecture design that separates computing (SQL layer) from storage (TiKV layer), making it easy to scale horizontally. You can add more nodes to a TiDB cluster or remove existing nodes to change its capacity and performance without causing significant downtime or interruption to your application. This lab show you how to scale in/out the SQL layer and the storage layer.

  ![56%](https://lab-static.pingcap.com/quick-demo/demo_009_en.png)

The figure below shows the topology of the TiDB cluster at the beginning of the lab, before any scaling in/out.

  ![56%](https://lab-static.pingcap.com/images/2025/8/3/882c0ff1cb40f4cf76568082be4820ceb0f80eaf.png)

### Tasks

+ Apply the test workload by using `sysbench`.
+ Observe the TiDB performance metrics from Grafana Dashboard.
+ Horizontally scale the SQL layer of the TiDB.
+ Horizontally scale the Storage layer of the TiDB.

> [!TIP]
> Click **Start** to launch the lab environment.
> Once the environment is ready, the resources assigned to your hands-on session will be populated with the actual values, so you can follow the lab guide step-by-step to complete the practice.