Galera Cluster

Galera Cluster is a synchronous multi-master replication technology designed for MySQL and MariaDB databases. It provides high availability, virtually synchronous replication, and automatic failover, allowing any node in the cluster to accept writes without data loss during outages.

Key facts

First appeared: 2010
Category: technology
Problem solved: Galera Cluster solved the critical problem of achieving true high availability and write scalability for MySQL and MariaDB without data loss during node failures. It addressed the limitations of asynchronous and semi-synchronous replication, which suffered from potential data loss, complex manual failovers, and restricted write operations to a single master node.
Platforms: macOS (for development), FreeBSD, Linux

Related technologies

ProxySQL
MaxScale
MariaDB
Percona XtraDB Cluster (PXC)
HAProxy
MySQL
Kubernetes

Notable users

Various e-commerce platforms (e.g., Magento)
Financial services companies
SaaS providers requiring high-uptime MySQL/MariaDB
Booking.com (via Percona XtraDB Cluster)