True or false: Sharding is an effective method for ensuring high availability of client data?

Sharding is primarily a technique used to enhance the performance and scalability of a database by distributing data across multiple servers or clusters. Its main goal is to allow for handling large volumes of data and high request loads. While sharding can help improve performance and manage larger datasets efficiently, it does not inherently provide high availability on its own.

High availability typically refers to a system’s ability to remain operational and accessible without interruption, even in the event of failures. This is usually achieved through replication, where copies of data are maintained across different servers. In contrast, sharding distributes data but does not create replicas; if one shard becomes unavailable, the data in that shard would not be accessible until it is restored, resulting in potential downtime.

For high availability, techniques such as replica sets or clustering should be employed alongside sharding. Therefore, the assertion that sharding is an effective method for ensuring high availability is not correct, making the statement false.