title: setting up mongodb for sharding/scalability?
body: <p>Any recommended readings for setting up mongodb for sharding/scalability?</p>
  
  <p>I'm looking for best practices. i don't know a lot about sharding or scaling db solutions. are there examples out there with practical real world examples?</p>
  
  <p>i apologize if i'm using the wrong terms.</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Is my understanding correct in that mongodb acts like a "single database" but knows how to distribute data across disparate instances of mongodb (maybe located in different locations, etc)</li>
  <li>Are each of those instances called shards? is that data replicated across all instances? </li>
  </ol>