title: NodeJS Cluster, useful use cases?
body: <p>I am researching use cases to introduce cluster computing with nodejs to a few friends.</p>
  
  <p>My goal is to explain a few real life nodejs cluster cases, and why nodejs is helpful at creating those particular cases.</p>
  
  <p>So far, really one case appeals to me:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><strong>clustering a webserver (like an API server by REST)</strong> (reason: load balancing)</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I saw examples about doing expensive calculations, mentioning the advantages on doing so on a different thread/processor.</p>
  
  <p>That lead me to thinking about about having worker pools, each pool doing different parts like handling solely the connection to a database, generating PDFs and similar.</p>
  
  <p>Trying to understand the ties from the worker to the master, I <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/runworker" rel="nofollow noreferrer">fiddled around</a> and I am still not sure:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>are nodejs clusters are only suited for having the same process be able to run in parallel (documentation suggests it)</li>
  <li>or does it makes sense to have nodejs cluster workers like separate tasks in pools.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>.. resulting in: what use cases are actually real world use cases with nodejs?</p>
  
  <p>Hopefully it is understandable.
  Opinions are very welcomed.</p>