Re: Replicating databases

On Thu, Nov 03, 2005 at 08:16:01AM -0800, codeWarrior wrote:
> It doesnt sound to me like replication is the right answer to this
> problem... You are setting yourself up to try and defeat one of the major
> purposes of a database in a client-server system -- namely -- centralized
> storage.

While I have a certain amount of sympathy for this view, it's often
the case that centralised storage isn't quite what you want. After
all, if always-fast is more important than always-right, we prefer
caches and such like. DNS is the obvious example there. And if
always-works is more important than always-fast or always-right, then
you have a very powerful incentive to keep things local.

That said, this case does sort of sound like money might be better
spent on improved communications that a humungous amount of work to
Rube up a Goldberg for getting all the data in every store. But
maybe we don't have the whole picture: maybe communications links
aren't stable in some of these stores, and can't be made so
economically.

A

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