A lot of databases claim to have global capabilities, including Amazon Aurora. Understanding what a database provider means when they say their database is truly "global" is crucial. If you are evaluating Amazon Aurora, CockroachDB, or other products that promise global capabilities, they should have, at the bare minimum, these three requirements:
- Global availability: A global database leverages geographic diversity of nodes to keep data available. It should be always on and resilient to facility failures and natural disasters.
- Global performance: A global database supports policies to replicate data close to where it is most often accessed (reads & writes) to achieve optimal global latencies.
- Global consistency: A global database maintains consistency even in a globally distributed deployment.
In "How Global is Amazon Aurora," learn why these three features are crucial for evaluating a database and what they mean for database performance.