The Howdy Glossary

Galera Cluster is a synchronous multi-master database cluster technology for MariaDB and MySQL. The technology provides a way to make sure that all nodes in the database cluster are consistent with each other at any given point in time, using a certification-based replication process. Galera Cluster allows for active-active configurations, meaning that multiple nodes can accept write operations simultaneously without conflicting data changes. When one node performs an update, the change is immediately propagated to other nodes within the cluster without losing consistency or causing conflicts. This approach avoids typical issues inherent to traditional asynchronous replication systems such as lagging replicas and potential data divergence during failovers. Galera Cluster is often used in environments where high availability and scalability are important factors, such as web applications with heavy traffic loads or mission-critical enterprise systems requiring fault tolerance against individual server failures.