What are the advantages and disadvantages of using database replication?

Database replication is the process of copying and maintaining data across multiple instances (replicas) to enhance availability and fault tolerance.

Advantages:

• Increased fault tolerance: data remains accessible on replicas in case of primary server failure.
• Improved read performance: read operations can be distributed among replicas.
• Backup: replicas can serve as backup sources.

Disadvantages:

• Synchronization complexity: data must be consistent across replicas, which can introduce delays (latency).
• Increased network and storage load: data duplication requires resources.
• Consistency issues: especially with asynchronous replication, data discrepancies can occur.

The choice of replication depends on system requirements: if high availability and scalable reading are important, replication is justified, but support complexity must be considered.