Forward Recovery
Forward recovery is a database recovery technique that restores a database to a consistent state by redoing transactions from a known good checkpoint or backup, rather than undoing recent changes. It involves applying transaction logs or archived data to bring the database forward in time to the point of failure. This approach is particularly useful when the database has experienced physical damage or corruption that makes undoing changes impractical.
Developers should learn forward recovery for scenarios where a database has been corrupted or lost due to hardware failures, software bugs, or disasters, and a recent backup exists. It is essential in high-availability systems, such as financial or e-commerce applications, where minimizing downtime and data loss is critical. Use cases include recovering from disk failures, restoring after a crash, or implementing disaster recovery plans in distributed databases.