Physical Replication
Physical replication is a database replication method that copies the exact physical storage blocks (e.g., data files, transaction logs) from a primary database server to one or more standby servers. It operates at the storage or file system level, ensuring byte-for-byte consistency between the source and replica databases. This approach is commonly used for high availability, disaster recovery, and read scaling in relational database systems.
Developers should use physical replication when they need exact, low-latency copies of a database for failover scenarios, such as in mission-critical applications requiring minimal data loss. It is particularly valuable for PostgreSQL, Oracle, and other enterprise databases where maintaining transactional integrity and consistency across replicas is essential. Use cases include creating standby servers for automatic failover, offloading read queries to replicas, and setting up geographically distributed backups.