A well-designed, large-scale algorithm has the following two characteristics:

• It is designed to handle a huge amount of data and processing requirements using an available pool of resources optimally.
• It is scalable. As the problem becomes more complex, it can handle the complexity simply by provisioning more resources.

One of the most practical ways of implementing large-scale algorithms is by using the divide and conquer strategy, that is, divide the larger problem into smaller problems that can be solved independently of each other.