Managing replicas

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Create a faraway replica

You can create faraway replicas in different active regions in your cloud. There is no limit on the number of faraway replicas each cluster can have. However, the added resources and data transfers can increase your cloud costs.

  1. Go to the Clusters page. A list of previously created clusters appears.

  2. Select the Create Replica icon next to a cluster to create its faraway replica. The Create Faraway Replica page appears.

  3. You can't edit the Cloud Provider field. The cloud provider is inherited from the source cluster. Move to the Cluster Settings tab.

  4. On the Cluster Settings tab, enter a name for your replica in the Cluster Name field.

  5. Skip to the Region section and select an active region where you want to deploy your replica. (The password and database type values are inherited from the source cluster.)

  6. Select the instance type in the Instance Type section. See Creating a cluster for details on instance type settings.

  7. Select the storage settings in the Storage section. See Creating a cluster for details on the storage settings.

  8. In the Networking section, specify whether to use private or public networking. See Creating a cluster for details on the Networking settings.

  9. On the DB Configuration tab, to avoid replication issues when running a replica (standby server), keep the inherited value or increase it for the following database configuration parameters.

    • max_connections

    • max_locks_per_transaction

    • max_prepared_transactions

    • max_wal_senders

    • max_worker_processes

  10. On the Additional Settings tab, in the Backups section, change the default replica backup retention period of 30 days using the Retention Time controls. You can configure the retention period as follows:

    • 1 - 180 days

    • 1 - 25 weeks

    • 1 - 6 months

  11. Enable Identity and Access Management (IAM) Authentication to turn on the ability to log in to Postgres using your AWS IAM credentials. See Authentication.

  12. Select Create Replica.

Modify a faraway replica

  1. Sign in to the BigAnimal portal.

  2. Go to the Clusters page. A list of previously created clusters appears.

  3. Select the cluster with the replica you want to modify. In the Overview tab, you can see the cluster's replicas under Faraway Replicas.

  4. Select the Edit Cluster icon next to the replica you want to modify. The Edit Faraway Replica page appears.

  5. In the Cluster Settings tab, in the Cluster Name field, enter the name for your replica.

  6. In the Password field, enter a password for your replica.

    In the Database Type section, you can see the Postgres type and Postgres version inherited from the source cluster. You can't edit the Postgres type and Postgres version.

  7. Skip the Region section. The region is inherited from the source cluster and you can't modify it.

  8. Select the instance type in the Instance Type section. See Creating a cluster for details on instance type settings.

    Note

    To avoid lag during replication, ensure that your replicas' instance type is at least as large as the source cluster's instance type.

  9. Select the storage settings in the Storage section. See Creating a cluster for details on the storage settings.

    Note

    To avoid lag during replication, ensure that your replicas' storage type is at least as large as the source cluster's storage type.

  10. In the Networking section, you specify whether to use private or public networking. See Creating a cluster for details on the Networking settings.

  11. On the DB Configuration tab, to avoid replication issues when running a replica (standby server), set the following database configuration parameters to the same or higher value than on the source cluster (primary server). Otherwise, queries are not allowed in the replica. If you are going to increase these GUC values, we highly recommend you set the same value for all faraway replicas first and then set the value on the source cluster. Conversely, if you're going to decrease these GUC values, we recommend setting the source cluster's value first and then the value for all faraway replicas.

    • max_connections

    • max_locks_per_transaction

    • max_prepared_transactions

    • max_wal_senders

    • max_worker_processes

  12. Select Save.

Promote a faraway replica

You can promote a faraway replica to a full-fledged cluster, which makes it capable of accepting writes. The new cluster created is different from the source cluster, and it doesn't replace the source cluster.

  1. Go to the Clusters page. A list of previously created clusters appears.

  2. Select the cluster with the replica you want to promote. In the Overview tab, you can see the cluster's replicas under Faraway Replicas.

  3. Select the Promote Faraway Replica icon next to the replica you want to promote. The Promote Faraway Replica page appears.

  4. The cluster settings are populated with values inherited from the source cluster. You can edit the cluster settings while creating your cluster.

    Notes
    • You can promote a faraway replica to a single node or high availability cluster but not to an extreme high availability cluster.
    • While promoting a replica to a cluster, you can't modify the Provider and Region fields, the Database Type section, or enable read-only workloads.

  5. Select Promote Replica.

Delete a faraway replica

  1. Sign in to the BigAnimal portal.

  2. Go to the Clusters page. A list of previously created clusters appears.

  3. Select the cluster with the replica you want to delete. In the Overview tab, you can see the cluster's replicas under Faraway Replicas.

  4. Select the replica you want to delete.

  5. Select the Delete icon next to the replica.

  6. Confirm that you want to permanently delete the replica. The replica is deleted.

Restore a replica backup

You can restore a replica backup to a standalone cluster. A new stand alone cluster is created and initialized with data from the replica backup.

  1. Select the cluster with the replica you want to restore on the Clusters page in the BigAnimal portal.

  2. In the Overview tab, you can see the cluster's replicas under Faraway Replicas. Select the replica.

  3. From Quick Actions, select Restore Replica.

  4. On the Restore Replica page:

    1. Fill in the required fields.
    2. In the Source section, in the Point in Time Restore field, select Now on the calendar to restore to the last possible recovery point. Or, choose a timestamp to restore further back in time.
    3. Review your selections and select Restore to begin the restore process.

  5. The new stand alone cluster is now available on the Clusters page.

Using the CLI to manage faraway replicas

See Faraway replicas CLI commands for information on CLI commands for managing faraway replicas.

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