Synchronizing Data and Supporting Replication - Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.4 for Effective MySQL Management - page 223

Synchronizing Data and
Supporting Replication
In this chapter, we will cover two features that were released in phpMyAdmin 3.3.0.
The first feature is the ability to synchronize databases, and was asked for by
developers who work on more than one server. The second feature permits
the management of MySQL replication, which is used in environments where
performance and data security are important. These features are somewhat related
because we usually need to synchronize the database to a slave server when setting it
up in a replication process.
Synchronizing data and structure
In earlier phpMyAdmin versions, it was possible to achieve some synchronization
of the structure and data between two databases on the same server or on different
servers, but this required manual operations. It was (and still is) possible to export
structure and/or data from one database and import in another one. We can even
visually compare the structure of two tables and adjust them according to our needs.
However, comparing the two databases to ascertain what needs to be imported had
to be done with the developer's own eyeballs. Moreover, differences in structure
between the databases were not taken into account, possibly resulting in errors when
a column was missing in the target table.
The synchronize feature of phpMyAdmin permits much flexibility, by taking care
of the initial comparison process and, of course, by performing the synchronization
itself. We will first discuss the reasons for synchronizing, and then examine and
experiment with all the steps involved.