A node (server) is an individual machine—physical or virtual—that participates in a distributed system or cluster. Each node can run services, store data, or perform compute tasks. In distributed architectures, multiple nodes work together to provide redundancy, fault tolerance, and horizontal scalability.
Why it matters
Nodes form the building blocks of cluster-based systems. Understanding nodes helps developers reason about load distribution, data replication, and system reliability across large infrastructures.
Examples
A Kubernetes worker node running several containers or a database replica node in a failover configuration. Lessons like The Journey of a Request describe how nodes participate in serving traffic.