Database Management · Advanced level

Advanced level · Module 4 of 6 · 22 guided hours

Replication, Availability and Recovery

Keep databases available and recoverable with replication, failover planning, managed services and disaster recovery targets.

Learning objectives

  • Set up streaming replication and read replicas
  • Plan high availability and failover
  • Define and test disaster recovery against RPO and RTO

Topics

  • streaming replication
  • read replicas and replication lag
  • failover and split-brain risks
  • managed cloud databases
  • RPO and RTO
  • disaster recovery runbooks

Lessons

  1. Lesson 1 Streaming Replication

    Copy changes continuously from a primary to standby servers and use replicas for reading.

    primary and standbywrite-ahead log streamingreplication lagread replica

  2. Lesson 2 High Availability and Failover

    Plan how a standby takes over when the primary fails, and avoid split-brain.

    promotionplanned vs unplanned failoversplit-brainfailover tools

  3. Lesson 3 Managed and Cloud Databases

    Weigh managed database services against running your own server.

    managed database serviceshared responsibilitydata locationvendor lock-in

  4. Lesson 4 Disaster Recovery Planning

    Set recovery targets with the organisation and prove them with drills.

    recovery point objective (RPO)recovery time objective (RTO)runbookrecovery drill

Practical activity

Create a standby replica for the health database, perform a planned failover and write a disaster recovery runbook with tested RPO and RTO.

Expected outcomes

  • A working replica and failover procedure
  • A tested disaster recovery plan

Assessment

Practical demonstration of failover and a timed recovery drill compared with the stated targets.

Taught live by an instructor — online or in person. Free course lessons are for self-study and do not lead to a certificate — see registration options.