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CREATE VIRTUAL CLUSTER statement creates a new virtual cluster. It is supported only starting a .
PCR happens between an active primary cluster and a passive standby cluster that accepts updates from the primary cluster. The unit of replication is a virtual cluster, which is part of the underlying infrastructure in the primary and standby clusters. The CockroachDB cluster has:
- The system virtual cluster manages the cluster’s control plane and the replication of the cluster’s data. Admins connect to the system virtual cluster to configure and manage the underlying CockroachDB cluster, set up PCR, create and manage a virtual cluster, and observe metrics and logs for the CockroachDB cluster and each virtual cluster.
- Each other virtual cluster manages its own data plane. Users connect to a virtual cluster by default, rather than the system virtual cluster. To connect to the system virtual cluster, the connection string must be modified. Virtual clusters contain user data and run application workloads. When PCR is enabled, the non-system virtual cluster on both primary and secondary clusters is named
application.
Required privileges
CREATE VIRTUAL CLUSTER requires one of the following privileges:
- The
adminrole. - The
MANAGEVIRTUALCLUSTERallows the user to run all the relatedVIRTUAL CLUSTERSQL statements for PCR.
Synopsis
xml version=“1.0” encoding=“UTF-8”?Parameters
Connection string
When you from the standby cluster, it is necessary to pass a connection string to the system virtual cluster on the primary cluster:Capabilities
Cockroach Labs does not recommend changing the default capabilities of created virtual clusters.
template virtual cluster with the same set of capabilities per CockroachDB version. When you start a replication stream, you can specify the template VC with LIKE to ensure other virtual clusters on the standby cluster will work in the same way. LIKE will refer to a virtual cluster on the CockroachDB cluster you’re running the statement from.
Examples
Start a replication stream
To start a replication stream to the standby of the primary’s application virtual cluster:template virtual cluster, which is created during . The standby’s system virtual cluster will connect to the primary cluster to initiate the replication stream job. For detail on the replication stream, refer to the for SHOW VIRTUAL CLUSTER.

