DDIA – Chapter 5

Basic Concepts:

1. Define replication in the context of data-intensive applications.

2. What are the main reasons for replicating data in a distributed system?

Replication Methods:

3. Explain the difference between single-leader, multi-leader, and leaderless replication.

4. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using a single-leader replication setup.
Consistency and Durability:

5. What is eventual consistency, and how does it differ from strong consistency?
6. Why might a system choose eventual consistency over strong consistency?

Replication Lag:

7. What is replication lag, and what problems can it cause in a replicated system?
8. How can replication lag be minimized?
Conflicts:

9. Describe how conflicts can arise in multi-leader replication.

10. What are some strategies for conflict resolution in replicated systems?

Partitioning and Replication:

11. How do partitioning and replication work together in a distributed database?

12. Give an example of a situation where partitioning could complicate the replication
process.
Failure Handling:

13. Explain the role of failover in replication.

14. What are some of the challenges of automatic failover in a single-leader replication
system?

Implementing Replication:

15. What are some of the considerations when implementing log-based replication?
16. How does the choice of synchronous versus asynchronous replication affect data
consistency and system performance?
Real-world Systems:

17. Choose a real-world database system (e.g., PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Cassandra) and
explain how it implements replication.
18. What are the trade-offs made by the chosen system's replication strategy?

Case Studies:

19. Describe a scenario from a real-world application where replication was crucial for
the system's success.
20. How did the chosen replication strategy benefit the system in this scenario?