How does data replication work?
Data replication entails the copying and writing of data from a source database to a separate location. This can be done in real time, or in bulk batches.
Data Replication Software
Best Data Replication Software include:
Carbonite Availability (formerly DoubleTake), Qlik Replicate, NetApp SnapMirror, IBM Spectrum Protect, Dell EMC RecoverPoint, SharePlex, Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager (formerly Veritas Volume Manager), IBM InfoSphere Data Replication, Dell EMC PowerScale SyncIQ (Isilon SyncIQ), and FalconStor NSS.
Data Replication Software Overview
What are Data Replication Tools?
Data replication tools support data security, disaster resilience and business continuity by rapidly creating a data replica in a location independent of the data’s source. The software provides central management of replication policy across heterogeneous data sources and targets. Different from backups, data replicas update frequently rather than retaining one unchanged copy for an extended period.
Data replication tools ensure consistency for end-users accessing multiple data stores in the normal course of business. Other potential uses are zero-downtime data migration, and multi-site replication for business continuity in case of site disaster. Data replication is a necessary part of long-term data retention and archiving. More recently, data replication software is offered to provide real-time transactional data delivery and integration into data lakes to support big data initiatives.
Vendors boast data policy compliance, any-point-in-time recovery and failover, and continuous replication with limited risk of data loss. They compete on providing minimum disruption to network activities and low bandwidth consumption, without cost to security. Leading vendors also enable change tracking within databases, known as “change data capture.”
Data Replication Types
There are several approaches to data replication that organizations can utilize. Full replication entails replicating and storing the entirety of a database’s information in another site. This is the most resource-intensive form of replication, but also the most comprehensive and useful in disaster recovery use cases.
Partial replication replicates specific fragments of the source database. These may be particularly critical segments of the database, or heavily-used fragments. In the former case, data replication tools can ensure availability of crucial data at lower cost than full replication. In the latter case, replicating high-traffic segments also segments the traffic to each data source, improving performance of the source database. Partial replication is also less resource-intensive and expensive, which can be valuable for some use cases.
Data Replication Tools Features
Data replication applications provides the following features:
Continuous replication with many recovery points
Cross-platform replication (e.g. disk to cloud, cloud to disk)
Database replication in remote locations
Automated compliance-driven data retention
Instant failover, automatic user redirect to secondary server
Monitor replication environment via GUI
Disaster recovery simulation, testing
Synchronous data replication with zero data loss
Asynchronous data replication for performance
Orchestration of data replication, migration
Perform analytics upon data sets separately
Data Replication Software Comparison
When comparing different data replication tools, consider these factors:
Scale: Buyers should consider how many sources and targets the business wants to replicate from and too. The scale of data replication can vary dramatically across organizations. Not every replication tool can handle a high volume of varied targets equally. Evaluate the specs of each product to ensure that they can handle your data scope.
Accessibility: How accessible are data replicas to the necessary users? A key secondary question is: who in the organization will need to access and work with data replicas? If business users or secondary systems need to leverage data replicas, then accessibility and ease of use should be higher priorities than if only IT specialists needed access to the replicated data.
Cloud Support: Are there cloud-based databases that need to be replicated, or only on-premise data sources? Many leading replication tools support replication agnostic of on-prem or cloud-based sources. However, some products are behind the curve on this functionality, and some organizations may not need it at all. Buyers should ensure that they’re paying for the right level of functionality, lest they overpay or be underserved.
Start a data replication software comparison here
Pricing Information
Data replication software is available on a paid subscription basis. Pricing scales with the number of data sources to be replicated, or volume of data. It may also scale with data destination, and whether or not data storage destination is managed by the replication service provider.
Data Replication Products
(1-25 of 27) Sorted by Most Reviews
Rubrik
Customer Verified
Top Rated
Rubrik is cloud data management and enterprise backup software provided by Palo Alto-based Rubrik, Inc. It is a software platform that provides backup, instant recovery, archival, search, analytics, compliance, and copy data management in one secure fabric across data centers and…
Key Features
- Live recovery (77)96%9.6
- Management dashboard (78)91%9.1
- Retention options (78)90%9.0
Carbonite acquired Double-Take, a data replication and disaster recovery option, in early 2017. The technology now powers Carbonite Availability, the now Carbonite supported high availability and data replication product.
Qlik Replicate enables organizations to accelerate data real-time replication, ingestion and streaming via change data capture, across a wide range of heterogeneous databases, data warehouses and data lake platforms.
Dell EMC RecoverPoint replication provides the continuous data protection to recover any application, on any supported storage array, in any location, to any point in time. Users can meet recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs) with instant access to…
Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP) is designed to future-proof infrastructure by delivering data protection and disaster recovery for every type of workload. Backed by heterogeneous, image-based technology that protects to and from any target, the vendor boasts combining enterprise-…
IBM Spectrum Protect provides data replication and data restoration capabilities.
Hitachi Universal Replicator replaces the obsolete Command Suite Replication Manager (formerly HiCommand Replication Monitor) as Hitachi Vantara's data replication option.
FalconStor NSS, from FalconStor Software in New York, is a data replication option.
Dell EMC AppSync is copy data management designed to empower application owners to satisfy copy demand for data repurposing, operational recovery, and disaster recovery. AppSync is designed to simplify, orchestrate, and automate the process of generating and consuming copies of production…
Hitachi Vantara's Hitachi Data Instance Director's (HDID) snapshot and replication orchestration can automatically create, refresh and expire physical and virtual copies of application data, with no impact on production performance or availability.
HPE Cloud Volumes is an enterprise grade multicloud storage solution supporting replication data storage at a monthly per usage cost.
The Syniti Knowledge Platform, from Syniti in needham, is an enterprise data platform designed to support data initiatives with a suite of tools supporting MDM, data quality and replication, and archival. The vendor states data that is typically lost and not usable for projects or…
StoneFly migrate is presented by the vendor as a light-weight easy-to-use migration tool that supports CIFS and NFS data migration over Local Area Network (LAN) or Wide Area Network (WAN). The software offers additional services like real-time replication jobs and setup redundancy,…
Percona XtraDB Cluster (PXC) is a high availability, open-source, MySQL clustering solution that helps enterprises minimize unexpected downtime and data loss, reduce costs, and improve the performance and scalability of database environments. The vendor states PXC can support critical…
CloneManager® creates identical copies of critical systems that can be used instantly in the event of a disaster. The live system is replicated to any supported physical, virtual or cloud environment and there is no need to rebuild servers or find and re-load software updates to…
Iron Cloud Data Replication is described by the vendor as a flexible, on-demand backup service featuring end-to-end encryption that enables users to replicate data off-site so it is protected, yet available for fast and efficient recovery.
Tencent's Data Transmission Service is a database-orientated data migration, cross-instance data synchronization and incremental data update subscription service. It provides database-oriented data migration, synchronization and subscription services and supports cross-instance continuous…
Apache Geode is a distributed in-memory database designed to support low latency, high concurrency solutions, available free and open source since 2002. With it, users can build high-speed, data-intensive applications that elastically meet performance requirements. Apache Geode…
Huawei Cloud Data Replication Service
Starting Price $0.40
The Data Replication Service (DRS) availabe on Huawei Cloud aims to help users migrate databases online and synchronize data in real time.
Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager (formerly Veritas Volume Manager, and Volume Replicator) is now part of the Veritas InfoScale product family, and is a data replication option.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is replication important?
Replication is important to ensure availability of business data and accessibility across different user groups.
What are the benefits of data replication tools?
Data replication tools automate necessary replication processes across a multitude of data sources and targets. This reduces the burden on IT departments and improved business user access to valuable data.
Who uses data replication tools?
Any business that works with business-critical or high volumes of data can benefit from data replication tools. They are most commonly used by large organizations or enterprises with a multitude of databases.