Failover
Failover is a resilience strategy in computing where a system automatically switches to a redundant or standby component, server, or network when the primary one fails or becomes unavailable. It ensures high availability and minimizes downtime by maintaining service continuity during failures, commonly used in databases, servers, and cloud infrastructure. This process can be manual or automated, with the latter often involving health checks and monitoring to trigger the switch.
Developers should learn and implement failover to build robust, fault-tolerant applications that require minimal downtime, such as in e-commerce, financial services, or critical infrastructure. It is essential for disaster recovery, load balancing, and meeting service-level agreements (SLAs) by preventing single points of failure and ensuring data integrity during outages.