The DataStream feature provides us with an intelligent mechanism for load balancing SQL traffic to backend endpoints. This might for instance be based upon READ and WRITE requests, where READ requests are forwarded to some dedicated backend SQL servers while WRITE requests are dedicated to a master cluster.
This can also be performed down to a database level, where we can load-balance specific databases, or can even be based upon other attributes such as usernames, packet size, and so on.
For MySQL, DataStream supports versions 4.1, 5, 5.1, 5.4, 5.5, and 5.6 using native MySQL authentication. For MS SQL it supports 2005, 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, and 2014 (only frontend) using both SQL authentication and NTLM or Kerberos using the TDS protocol.
This book will only focus on SQL authentication against MS SQL.