Replication

In biology, replication is the act or ability to make a copy. (Mostly commonly meaning molecular replication).

• Self-replication is the act of a molecule (or any other pattern) making a copy of itself. \n* DNA replication is the act of copying the genetic material of a cell (DNA) to a daughter cell is almost, but not quite, a form of self-replication because it requires the cellular apparatus to perform that replication.\n* Semiconservative replication is the particular mechanism of DNA replication, of several mechanisms that were originally hypothesised, that was found to be actually used in cells.

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In computer science, replication is the provision of redundant resources (software or hardware components) to improve reliability and fault-tolerance. Storage or backup of the same data on multiple file systems is an example for replication. Database replication is implemented, for example in MySQL, usually with a master slave relationship between the original and the copy. Updates are logged at the master and rippled through to the slave. The slave outputs a message stating the last update it successfully received, so that subsequent updates can be sent (and resent) until successfully applied. See also Coda and RAID.