High Availability, Replication, and Backup Strategies in PostgreSQL

Intermediate

🔁 High Availability & Backup in PostgreSQL

Ensuring PostgreSQL's continuous availability involves implementing replication and backup solutions.


📡 Streaming Replication

Allows real-time data copies from a primary to standby servers.

🛠️ Configuration Example

# postgresql.conf
wal_level = replica
max_wal_senders = 3

# pg_hba.conf
host replication all 192.168.1.0/24 md5

🧬 Logical Replication

Enables selective data replication for specific tables, providing more granular control.


💾 Backup Solutions

  • 🧠 pg_dump: Logical backups
  • 🗂️ Filesystem snapshots: Physical backups

⏳ Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR)

Uses write-ahead logs (WAL) to restore databases precisely to a given moment in time.


✅ Combining replication with robust backup strategies minimizes downtime and data loss, making it ideal for enterprise-grade deployments.