Why would you want to have separate read/write databases?

Here are a few things you should consider.

As software engineers, we always look for ways to improve our applications and systems. Right?

One technique that's often overlooked is using separate read and write databases.

And this offers a range of benefits:
- Optimized performance
- Increased scalability
- Fault tolerance

Let's break them down.

First, it allows for the optimized performance of the database. By separating reads from writes, you can better tune each database for its specific purpose and avoid conflicts.

Another benefit is increased scalability. You can scale each database independently by using separate read and write databases. This is particularly useful when your application has heavy read traffic, but light write traffic, or vice versa.

Separate read and write databases can also improve fault tolerance. In case of an outage on the write database, you can redirect reads to the read database while the write database is being restored.

This can help minimize downtime and ensure your application remains available to your users.

Finally, having separate databases can simplify your application code. You can use different database technologies for the read and write databases or even use different schema designs to optimize each for its purpose.

This can make your application code easier to understand and maintain.

Whether using the same database technology or running in a polyglot persistence environment, the main ideas still hold.

However, one big downside is the increase in operational complexity.

Now you need to consider maintaining multiple data stores, synchronizing data between them, and solving for eventual consistency.

Software engineering, for me, is about having options and being able to consider the tradeoffs you're making and what you stand to gain or lose.

Did you work with separate read and write databases before?

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