> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.bdb.ai/bdb-documentation/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.bdb.ai/bdb-documentation/data-pipeline/about-data-pipeline/distributed-compute.md).

# Distributed Compute

Distributed computing is the process of connecting multiple computers via a local network or wide area network so that they can act together as a single ultra-powerful computer capable of performing computations that no single computer within the network would be able to perform on its own. 

Distributed computers offer two key advantages:

* **Easy scalability:** Just add more computers to expand the system. 
* **Redundancy:** Since many different machines are providing the same service, that service can keep running even if one (or more) of the computers goes down. 

<figure><img src="https://972575688-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FRYq1HgffNfbnIMWPu1D5%2Fuploads%2F2w7VWH9xr2ijXCDoIV1Q%2Fimage.png?alt=media&amp;token=a4ea8f26-b3f2-4e7a-a431-f57b92e34c2a" alt=""><figcaption><p>You can run multiple instances of the same process to increase the process throughput. This can be done using the auto scaling feature</p></figcaption></figure>