PostgreSQL Streaming Replication
PostgreSQL Streaming Replication is a built-in feature that enables real-time, asynchronous or synchronous replication of data from a primary PostgreSQL server to one or more standby servers. It works by continuously streaming Write-Ahead Log (WAL) records from the primary to the standby servers, allowing the standby servers to apply these changes and stay in sync. This provides high availability, load balancing, and disaster recovery capabilities for PostgreSQL databases.
Developers should learn and use PostgreSQL Streaming Replication when building systems that require high availability, such as e-commerce platforms or financial applications, to minimize downtime during primary server failures. It is also useful for offloading read queries to standby servers to improve performance in read-heavy workloads, and for creating geographically distributed backups for disaster recovery scenarios.