Before explaining Shard Key, it's important to understand Sharding. Now, this is the process of splitting large data sets across multiple MongoDB instances. So, a shard key is an indexed field or indexed compound fields that will define the distribution of the collection’s documents among these cluster shards. Wishing to learn MongoDB from scratch? Enroll in Intellipaat’s MongoDB training course, which offers you one of the best industry-grade courses, along with projects and exercises to help you enhance your practical skills. Watch the following video on MongoDB Architecture to get started.