High Performance MySQL, 2nd Edition

Chapter 8. Replication

MySQL’s built-in replication capability is the foundation for building large, high-performance applications on top of MySQL. Replication lets you configure one or more servers as slaves, or replicas, of another server. This is not just useful for high-performance applications—it is also handy for many other tasks, such as sharing data with a remote office, keeping a “hot spare,” or keeping a server with a copy of the data for testing or training purposes.

In this chapter, we examine all aspects of replication. We begin with an overview of how it works, then look at basic server setup, designing more advanced replication configurations, and managing and optimizing your replicated servers. Although we generally focus a lot on performance in this book, we are equally concerned with correctness and reliability when it comes to replication, so we show you how to make replication work well. We also look at some of the upcoming changes and improvements in MySQL replication, such as some interesting patches created by Google.

Replication Overview

The basic problem replication solves is keeping one server’s data synchronized with another’s. Many slaves can connect to a single master, and a slave can, in turn, act as a master. You can arrange masters and slaves in many different topologies. You can replicate the entire server, replicate only certain databases, or even choose which tables you want to replicate.

MySQL supports two kinds of replication: statement-based replication ...