Data replication is the process of creating and maintaining copies of data across multiple databases, servers, or locations. The copies are kept synchronized according to defined rules, allowing the same information to be available in more than one system. Replication can be performed continuously or at scheduled intervals, depending on how quickly changes need to reach the other copies.
A business might replicate a production database to a separate system so analytics workloads can run without affecting customer transactions. Replication is also useful for disaster recovery, geographic distribution, and maintaining service availability when one system becomes unavailable. Related concepts include database synchronization, high availability, backup, disaster recovery, and distributed databases.
