Advanced MySQL Replication Techniquesby Giuseppe Maxia You may
know about the MySQL Cluster, which is a complex architecture to
achieve high availability and performance. One of the advantages
of MySQL Cluster is that each node is a peer to the others,
whereas in a normal replicating system you have a master and
many slaves, and applications must be careful to write only to
the master. The main disadvantages of MySQL Cluster are (as of
MySQL 5.0): - The database is in memory only, thus requiring
more resources than a normal MySQL database. (MySQL 5.1
introduces table spaces, with the capability of storing
nonindexed data on disk.) - Some normal features are not
available, such as full-text searches, referential integrity,
and transaction isolation levels higher than There are some
cases where the MySQL Cluster is the perfect solution, but for
the vast majority, replication is still the best choice.
Replication, too, has its problems, though: - There is a
fastidious distinction between master and slaves. Your