Versioned MySQL Replica
Problem
Is your production MySQL vulnerable to data loss?
If an operator runs a bad query, script, or deployment can your production MySQL can be down for hours or days as you recover data from backups or logs?
Are you worried your backups aren't working?
Does internal audit want an immutable log of what changes on your MySQL instance?
Do you want the ability to copy and sync your production MySQL database for analytics, development, or debugging?
Dolt solves this by…
Because Dolt is MySQL-compatible, you can set Dolt up as a versioned replica of your MySQL primary. Every transaction commit on your primary becomes a Dolt commit on the Dolt replica.
On your Dolt replica, you get a full, immutable, queryable audit log of every cell in your database. If an auditor wants guarantees that a cell in your database has not been modified, you can use Dolt to prove it. Diffs can be produced for every transaction.
If an operator makes a bad query, runs a bad script, or makes a bad deployment, you have an additional tool beyond backups and logs to restore production data. Find the bad transactions using Dolt's audit capabilities. Rollback the bad individual transactions. Produce a SQL patch and apply that back to your primary. If there are conflicting writes, Dolt will surface those for you and you can decide how to proceed. A Dolt replica becomes an essential part of your disaster recovery plan, shortening some outages by hours or days or recovering lost production data.
Moreover, Dolt can be added to your serving path as a read-only MySQL replica, so you know that it is always in sync with your primary. Your disaster recovery instance can serve production traffic so you always know it's working.
Additionally, a Dolt replica can be easily cloned (ie. copied) to a developer's machine for debugging purposes. See a data issue in production? Debug locally on your laptop safely.
Dolt replaces...
Backups and Transaction Logs
Dolt as a versioned replica becomes your first line of defense against a bad operator query, script, or deployment. Dolt is online and contains the full history of your database. In a disaster you can use diffs to find a bad query and roll it back. Then you can produce a database patch and apply it to production. You do not need to reinstall from a backup and play the transaction log back to the point of the failure, an extremely time consuming process.
Change Data Capture
Change Data Capture is a way to add a history of data changes to an existing database. Modern change data capture tools consume replication logs to produce database changes in a consumable stream. Dolt can consume the same logs producing a simpler change data capture solution.
Companies Doing this
Case Studies
Let us know if you would like us to feature your use of Dolt as a versioned MySQL replica here.
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