The most important step in any IT project is the design. This must be the first step, as changes to the system at a later stage will incur additional costs. Factors that affect the design are typically user requirements, functionality, data volumes, performance expectations, security, and cost. Often, the simplest designs are the most elegant and easiest to maintain and upgrade.
At a high level, the design must include the following generic components:
Hardware
Software
Operating system
Database
Network
Storage
Security
All these points must be factored into the overall system architecture. So, let's take a look at some of the options and key design issues. The following areas will help answer some of the questions that influence the decision making process:
Replication method: What do we want to achieve? What data do we need to replicate?
Networking: How do we make our solution resilient to network outages?
Performance and scalability: How do we make our solution...