Design and implementation of replication and clustering so a single server failure is not a service outage.
The technology differs by engine — streaming replication and Patroni for PostgreSQL, Group Replication or Galera for MySQL, Always On availability groups for SQL Server — but the questions are the same. How much data can you afford to lose, how long can you afford to be down, does failover happen automatically or by decision, and has anyone actually tested it. We answer those with you first, then build to the answer.
Who it’s for
Organisations whose databases cannot be a single point of failure.
- Institutions with uptime commitments to customers, the business or a regulator
- Core banking, payments and transaction systems where downtime has a direct cost
- Organisations that have a replica configured but have never tested failing over to it
- Teams planning a data-centre move or a second site
What we deliver
A tested failover capability, with documented recovery objectives everyone has agreed to.
RTO and RPO definition
How long you can be down and how much data you can lose, agreed with the business before any topology is chosen.
Topology design
Replication or cluster architecture matched to those objectives and to your network and site layout.
Implementation
Build of the replication or cluster configuration, including quorum and witness arrangements where relevant.
Automatic failover
Failover automation configured and tuned, including the split-brain protections that make it safe to leave automatic.
Connection routing
Application connection handling so clients follow the primary without manual reconfiguration.
Failover testing
Controlled failover exercises, run and documented — a cluster that has never failed over is a theory.
Monitoring integration
Replication lag and cluster state as monitored, alerting checks.
Runbooks and training
Documented procedures for planned and unplanned failover, and training for the staff who will run them.
Technologies we implement
- PostgreSQL streaming replication
- Patroni
- MySQL Group Replication
- Galera Cluster
- MariaDB replication
- SQL Server Always On availability groups
- SQL Server failover clustering
How it connects to the rest of your stack
Nothing we deploy is meant to stand alone. These are the joins we build as part of the same engagement.
- Monitoring — Cluster state, replication lag and failover events are monitored and alerted, so a degraded cluster is not discovered during the next outage.
- Disaster recovery — High availability handles component failure; disaster recovery handles site loss. We design them as one plan, not two.
- Project governance — Cluster implementation is delivered as a staged project with a defined cutover gate.