heroku/WAL-E — Issue #15: support read/write environments
Author: fdr
Created: 2011-11-09 08:18:20+00:00
State: open

I think the single-context model for WAL-E is oversimplifying a common pattern: often, one has the following setup

Primary -- pushes out to a context
Standby -- Reads from a context, but also has an alternative write-context prepared in event of failover

You definitely do not want multiple databases writing to the same context. So I think the contexts let you build a more useful pattern, but don't really indicate it. A new version of WAL-E should enrich the semantics such that one can have one context that encapsulates an entire standby/failover life-cycle: basically, a "push" environment and a "fetch" environment baked in.