#data replication tools

For any business, the very thought of systems crashing and losing data can be a nightmare. But this need not be the case if data is replicated to another location. In the case of an outage in the primary database, the secondary database is triggered and work goes on normally without any downtime till the issue is resolved.

Data replication solutions facilitate the process of copying and storing data in multiple locations. Depending on the needs of an organization, data replication can be a one-time activity or an on-going one. The purpose of replication is to make sure that changes, additions, and deletions to the target database are updated regularly and are consistent with the source database at all times. This in turn helps to improve data accessibility and availability while ensuring system strength and consistency.

Data replication solutions copy data from one location to another. It can be between two on-premise databases in the same location or another, from on-premise to the cloud, from one cloud provider to another, and in very rare cases, from the cloud to on-premise location. Replicating data can be on-demand in batches or bulk according to a pre-set schedule or in real-time where data is entered or modified in the target database at the same time as changes taking place in the source database.

Types of replication

There are several forms of data replication solutions.

·        Full replication – In this process, the entire database is copied from the source database to the target database including new, changed, and existing data. Systems should have high processing power to cope with large data volumes and maintain consistency.

·        Partial replication – This process is faster than full replication as only a part of the data – usually the updated portion – is replicated. Since the volume of data is small there is no additional load on the network.

·        Log-based replication –It is only applicable to databases as it is done through binary files in databases. Data replication solutions read data directly from the blog files, thereby reducing the load on the production system.

Maintaining data consistently across divergent locations can be achieved with highly optimized data replication solutions.

Benefits of data replication

The following benefits can be had from data replication.

·        Data availability and integrity – Data replication assures easy access to data in different locations. It is particularly important for organizations that are spread all over the globe. In case of any system failure, another at a different location is automatically triggered.

·        Disaster recovery – In case of any failure or system outage at a location, data from another location can be used to update the affected system. Data recovery is one of the critical benefits here.

·        Support for shared projects – Modern data-driven businesses replicate data from various sources into data marts and data warehouses to help analytics teams in multiple locations take up shared projects.