MySQL dual master

Question

For my current project we are thinking of setting up a dual master replication topology for a geographically separated setup; one db on the us east coast and the other db in japan. I am curious if anyone has tried this and what there experience has been.

Also, I am curious what my other options are for solving this problem; we are considering message queues.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Just a note on the technical aspects of your plan: You have to know that MySQL does not officially support multi-master replication (only MySQL Cluster provides support for synchronous replication).

But there is at least one "hack" that makes multi-master-replication possible even with a normal MySQL replication setup. Please see Patrick Galbraith's "MySQL Multi-Master Replication" for a possible solution. I don't have any experience with this setup, so I don't dare to judge on how feasible this approach would be.

Answer 2

There are several things to consider when replicating databases geographically. If you are doing this for performance reasons, be sure your replication model supports your data being "eventually consistent" as it can take time to bring the replication current in both, or many, locations. If your throughput or response times between locations is not good, active replication may not be the best option.